Who Goes There?
by Two-Eyed Charlie
Summary: There's something on the Watchtower...
1. Chapter 1

**I guess I could've done a Christmas story, considering what day it is and all that. But, you know, when there's snow outside, my mind tends to go to one place and one place only.**

 **With that being said, while this is rated T-for Teen...it's gonna get gory, eventually. I'm not really in to lathering it on, but just as a heads up, it's...well you can probably guess what movie I'm basing the concept of this story on. Consequently, you can probably guess the level of violence. that's gonna be thrown down later on.**

 **Anyways, thanks for reading, and hopefully you enjoy the story!**

 **(DC owns things, John W. Campbell and John Carpenter also own things...heh, "things.")**

 ***Cue Ennio Morricone's score***

* * *

 **Who Goes There?**

" _Man is the warmest place to hide…"_

 **(***)**

* * *

 **I**

Diana didn't consider herself to be superstitious.

She recognized that was an odd statement to make, considering how she was a mound of clay animated by magic. But that was partially it: being linked to the gods of antiquity and having conversed with the Fates themselves, Diana was well aware of just how rigid their plans were, how chewing gum with only her left molars wasn't going to result in a bountiful harvest. If the gods were going to intervene, Diana would know; ergo, she had simply chalked up funny feelings and twitching eyes to other, more reasonable causes (like caffeine—it was almost always caffeine).

But Diana had a funny feeling today, and no matter what she did she just couldn't shake it. Everything seemed slightly off kilter to her, every step just a little unstable. It hadn't affected her duties in the political field or on the Watchtower (Athena knows she would have done something about it were that the case), but during her downtime it was noticeable, palpable even. It got to such a point that, a few days earlier, she had cornered Bruce in the Watchtower laboratory just to have a conversation about it, to "bat" around ideas with someone who would listen (she had come up with the pun herself—Bruce had grunted at a slightly higher octave than normal, so that was something).

"Might be food poisoning," he had told her. "And by that I mean someone might have tried to spike your drink with arsenic."

"I doubt it," she said back. "I am not one to sample local cuisine."

"Don't like the food usually?"

"No—usually I am just being shot at."

Bruce smiled and pushed back from the computer terminal. "Fair enough," he said. "Wish I could help, but I'm not the best person to talk to about this. _Everything_ looks 'off-kilter' to me."

He paused, looked at Diana, seemed to consider his words. "Because I'm a _detective_ , not because…yeah."

Diana returned his smile. "I believe you," she said. But her mind returned to her unease, and she felt the need to let out a sigh. "Perhaps it is because I have too little to do. Heidegger was quite emphatic that an unoccupied mind makes one anxious."

"I wouldn't use the word 'emphatic' to describe Heidegger," Batman said, now standing. "And I don't think your problem is too much free time. Probably the exact _opposite_ , actually."

"I thought I ruled out stress," Diana said, "but I suppose I could be wrong. It makes enough sense, at the very least." And that it did—Diana had, after all, being ferried back and forth between conflict hot spots, the UN, and the Watchtower almost constantly. In fact, there was an old saying—from the 1960's—that the only difference between a regular activist and a woman's rights activist is that the latter attends four times as many meetings; Diana was starting to feel that such a statement described her relation to pretty much the rest of the League almost perfectly. Part of her liked it, part of her felt guilty for liking it, and part of her thought that a vacation in Fiji would be nice even if the island was being hit with a tsunami.

So that was probably it. Maybe. Possibly. Diana remembered her mind locking on to that explanation, and once that happened the rest of her thoughts decided it was good enough to move on. Stress would do; stress would explain the funny feeling that refuse to go away.

( _Yes, stress does wonders for your sanity…_ )

( _And speaking of stress…_ )

"How are _you_ doing, by the way?" Diana said to Bruce. "Clark mentioned that you had forgone sleep for the week— _again_."

"Clark exaggerates," Bruce said, casting a glance at the computer terminal.

"That would explain the lack of bruises, I suppose. Alfred rarely lets you get away with that without leaving his mark."

"He's read me the Riot Act too, trust me." Bruce sat down again, though he motioned for Diana to take a seat as well, if she wanted. She shook her head.

"No, I'm fine," Bruce said. "A lot of late nights, but they do end in sleep. Maybe not enough, but it's there."

"I should be more angry," Diana said, though she wasn't—the odd feeling she had felt was starting to rescind. Things felt more normal.

"You could be," Bruce said. "But the next time Langstrom tries to turn everyone in Gotham into bats, I'll be ready." He gestured to the rest of the laboratory—a section in the corner was covered with caged and sleeping bats. It was like Bruce had robbed a zoo and stashed his prizes in space.

"Would that be what you are working on now?" Diana asked.

"Not really—I'm splitting my time between that and a fraud case. Not my normal _modus operandi_ , but crime is crime."

He pointed at the screen, Diana made a comment ("…interesting—looks like a scheme…in the shape of a pyramid…a "pyramid scheme," if you will…"), and after the both of them shared a chuckle, the conversation deviated away from work. Diana had found it somewhat odd that Batman would dedicate so many of his waking hours to Langstrom and Langstrom alone, but it ultimately didn't matter. Bruce had his own interests—his own way of looking at the world—and Diana respected that. Besides, she felt less funny, and while that was not the only reason she enjoyed her talk with Bruce, her relaxation time between missions was now exactly as it should be—relaxing.

That was then; now, the funny feeling—the superstitious sense of something going catastrophically wrong—was back, and it had made its presence known to her with gusto. Talking with Bruce was out of the question (she didn't want others to think of this as a reoccurring problem, even if it was), which left her little else to do except keep busy and make her mind go elsewhere.

Except the world had been relatively peaceful for the past week, her application for a Themysciran Embassy was going smoothly, and the Watchtower had been under construction for the same length of time. Teleporter problems, to be precise; no easy way from the satellite to the planet, not without taking one of only two shuttles not intended for heroics-related missions. That left her a lot of time to wander around the Watchtower, helping John and Shayera with construction where she could and reading or writing for the rest. As she walked down the halls adjacent to the central hub for the fifth time in a row, she wondered if that was why the feeling felt so strong, that too much free time combined with a change in her environment had just fed into the stress as it bled off. But a voice in the back of her mind told her, no, it had started long before she had too much time on her hands; it was a voice that grew all the more powerful when Diana used the Golden Perfect, and a voice that saw fit to remind her how it rarely couldn't sort out the truth.

( _Good gods, I am_ desperate _for answers...lasso, you have failed me utterly and you know it..._ )

The sound of footsteps dragged Diana back into the external world. Around the corner came Shayera—Hawkgirl—covered in splotches of grease from wing to toe. Diana's brow rose into a point, but none-the-less she felt a ping of relief. It would be nice to have a casual conversation with someone after all the wandering she had done, and nothing said "casual" like asking why your friend had become 40% more flammable.

"Morning Di," Shayera said.

"Good morning Shayera." She walked up to her friend and placed a finger on an oil splotch. "I, um, have to ask, you understand."

"Yeah yeah," Shayera said, rubbing at the splotch with the heel of her hand. It didn't come off. "The teleporter violently disagreed with what I was doing. Might be because I was kicking it at the time, but still—it's being picky."

"Is it still refusing to teleport any of our junk?" Diana asked, conscious of the fact that she'd love nothing more than a quick trip to the surface at that very moment. She was also conscious of how unlikely that was, didn't even need to look at Shayera's shaking head to know what her answer would be.

"It's teleporting things, all right—just not to one place _. And_ none of said places are on Earth. Actually, John's pretty sure we opened up a portal to Hell the other day, so, yeah, progress is slow."

Diana smiled the fullest smile she could manage (which wasn't much; she was becoming aware of just how exhausted she felt, which shouldn't be happening with the amount of "rest and relaxation" time she had) and said, "Has Wally already offered to turn it on and off again?"

"Twice," Shayera said, smiling back. "We're pretty sure he thought nobody heard him the first time, so John threatened to hit him with a boxing glove the second time."

"And it worked?"

"Oh it was _very_ effective. Too bad we lost a third set of hands."

Diana was about to snap at what she felt was a free opportunity to help when a sound tore apart reality, echoing through the Watchtower halls. It was unearthly, garbled—a lot like someone choking on their own blood or suffocating in their own skin. There was no crashing, no struggling that Diana or Shayera could hear—just an inhuman scream that Diana was sure would have ripped apart a normal man's vocal cords. The two heroes stood still, their joints locked together. The scream faded, like it was a passing breeze, but they could still feel it, their minds could still _hear_ it.

"What in the name of all that is Good was that?" Diana said. She had assumed a defensive position instinctively, and noticed just then that it was a stance reserved for the biggest and most powerful foes she had faced. Shayera already had her mace out, fully charged and crackling with energy.

"I was kidding about the portal to Hell, you know," she said. "Just a joke. No truth in it what-so-ever."

"You have me convinced," Diana said. They moved back to back, covering each other's six for a threat that they couldn't even name, let alone see.

"I'm thinking 'red alert'," Shayera said.

"I would be in agreement," Diana answered back. "But until we know which direction we are being attacked from—"

Another scream stabbed at their ears—but this one could be placed, was familiar in its anguish.

"Jesus, that's _J'onn_ ," Shayera said. That was _all_ that was said, as both heroes had taken flight and were speeding towards J'onn's hab-suite with enough speed to ripple the walls as they passed. The scream came in oscillating waves, and with every pulse their speed increased.

Shayera's foot was the first thing through the door—literally. Her kick sent the heavy-set sheet of metal flying towards the opposite side of the room, letting the full brunt of the Martian Manhunter's scream slash at them like barbed wire. It sounded as though the room was depressurising, that J'onn's throat had split itself open and was attempting to expel his very soul. Then it reached a crescendo that no organic being could possibly have created—not alone, not without the aid of an army's worth of other tortured victims. Throughout her many years in active global conflicts, Diana had heard a great deal of screams come from innocent souls; but what she was hearing in J'onn's suite—the pain her friend was clearly going through—might have brought her to tears right there in the doorway if her training hadn't taken control automatically. At the very least, her ears would ring and echo back what she heard for the next two hours, without reprieve.

And Shayera…Shayera just looked pale beyond belief.

They sprinted into the room, foregoing safety in order to rescue their friend from whatever was happening to him. The room was dark, though—specially designed that way for J'onn. Even with their advanced senses, the possibility of being blindsided was increasingly likely. And J'onn's screaming had abruptly stopped—mid breath, it seemed like to Diana. Whatever was attacking J'onn appeared to be done with him, and there was no reason to assume one victim would be enough.

Diana pulled out her lasso and stretched in in front of her eyes. A small circle of the room lit up in golden light, just enough for Diana to note the books and blankets and cartons of Oreos strewn about the floor. His room was dishevelled, but Diana couldn't remember hearing the kind of noises necessary for a fight. Maybe the screams had covered it up, but Diana doubted that—she did, after all, have advanced hearing, and would have easily picked up on any punches or kicks that were thrown. Shaking her head, she saw Shayera back towards her, and the glow from her mace mixed with that of the Golden Perfect. They inched deeper into the suite.

"Do you think he's dead?" Shayera asked.

"The silence is not comforting," Diana answered back. Shayera had sounded cold—distant, even—but that was the training, Diana knew. It was the very thing that was keeping her alive as well. She understood; this was how trained minds operated in combat.

"Yeah. But J'onn can handle himself."

"I did not hear a struggle. Whatever was in here with him no doubt—"

The combined glow of their weapons passed over a line of deep scratches, deep enough that only someone as powerful as J'onn could have created them. They lead past J'onn's bed and into a secondary area—Diana had never been in his room, but she assumed it was either some sort of closet, or, more likely, a meditation room for when her friend was alone. She motioned in the direction the scratches pointed with her shoulder, and both she and Shayera sank into a deeper defensive position. They were ready, or at least Diana hoped they were. For J'onn's sake, if nothing else.

"Who should lead?" Diana asked. Shayera paused, then shook her head.

"Whoever's got the stomach to deal with what we find."

"J'onn is our friend, and we are not sociopaths. Neither one of us will be remotely OK afterwards."

"Then we go together," Shayera said. "On my mark—ready?"

Diana nodded, and in her mind she placed images to her memory of the screams. A sickly churning began in her stomach, and as she cursed her imagination she felt her grip on the lasso tighten to the point of causing pain. They shuffled forward what felt like only an inch, then another inch, then one more, and in far too quick a time they were at the doorframe of the secondary area, close enough to notice the pure silence close in around them like a wall of water. Diana felt her hand pass over the scratches, round the frame, and just as her arm was about to pass into total blackness—

A noise from behind startled both heroes, and they whirled around in attack position to confront whatever was heading their way. It was Wally—the Flash—with John Stewart right next to him. The pointed ears of Bruce's cowl cast a shadow from the hall towards the centre of the room, filling out the silhouette at the room's entrance in a noticeably demonic way. Diana felt her fist clench and almost caught herself cursing Bruce's costume design, but managed to calm herself quickly. Her nerves were frayed—shouting at the rest of her friends would accomplish nothing.

Shayera still laid into them, however.

"God, _Christ_ —are you guys serious?"

"Sorry I've, um, I've been rounding people up," Wally said, looking as though he was completely unsure if he wanted to walk forward. "After I heard the screams I saw you guys bolting to J'onn's room. Kinda thought you might need back-up."

Diana moved herself between the secondary area's entrance and the rest of the League. "You should stay back," she said. "If whatever attacked J'onn is still in there—"

"Then you might need help," Bruce said, pushing past John and Wally with his shoulders. He quickly crossed the room, ignoring Shayera as he raised her hand to stop him.

"Seriously Bruce," she said. "I don't know what's in there, but it's pissed off, whatever it is."

Before Bruce could say anything, before _anyone_ could say anything, a groan that seemed to drip with liquid rose out of the darkness and cut off all other thoughts. Without a single word spoken, the League piled into the room with their weapons drawn, ready to take on whatever was still in there.

The room was empty, save for J'onn. But J'onn was alive, they saw that immediately.

As Bruce swore to a god he didn't believe in, Diana couldn't help but think how much better it would have been had they found a corpse.

 **II**

When they found J'onn, he was curled in a fetal position with his arms locked around him in unnatural configurations. His eyes were closed, as though he was sleeping, but something like blood was leaking out of them in a steady trickle. Shudders wracked his body, shudders that looked more like the spasms of a malfunctioning animatronic puppet than an organic being. And his skin was a pale shade of green, as if several layers of his skin had been shaved off to reveal a white core, one that was trying to push its way through to the surface. J'onn looked horrible, and it ate at Diana's heart. But more than that—and Diana hated herself for this—it fed her curiosity: the scratches on the walls had been from his own fingers, meaning that it was highly unlikely that something else was in his hab suite while he was screaming.

 _(So what in the name of Hades happened to him?)_

That question _also_ ate away at Diana, and the possibilities that her mind concocted did little to put her at ease. The rest of the League—who stood around J'onn in the bleached white of the medical bay—seemed no less shaken up, but Diana told herself that they hadn't been suffering from a malignant case of the jitters for the past month or more. That thought made her feel selfish, but none-the-less it was there and incredibly hard to ignore. It wasn't so much that this event with J'onn had added to her anxiety as it was that it _didn't_ —this made no sense to Diana, but she felt very much like she had before, only with the addition of sadness due to the state her friend was in. It made her realize just how off-kilter she had felt before, and just how hard she was trying to ignore it until today.

( _So what in the name of Hades is happening to_ me _?_ )

( _No, worry about J'onn—I am unimportant right now_ )

"I sincerely do not mean to doubt you, Bruce," Diana said, looking away from the medical table. "But are you _positive_ that J'onn did all that himself?"

Bruce sighed and ripped off his medical gloves—he sounded and looked tired, not impatient. "I asked myself that almost a hundred times, Diana. But Wally did a sweep of the room—any bits of wall that weren't under his finger nails could be found on the floor. So far as I can tell, J'onn was alone in his room."

"But that does not mean he wasn't attacked."

Bruce nodded, sliding his Batman gloves over his bare hands. "Agreed." As he was closer to Diana than Wally or John or Shayera, she heard him mumble, "Not that it makes what happened any less terrifying."

Diana placed a hand lightly on Bruce's shoulder as Shayera walked forward and said, "What are we thinking? Psych attack? Chemical warfare?"

"We'd better assume it's chemical no matter what," John said. "Far as I'm concerned, that's our worst-case-scenario." His uniform had spots of grease on it as well—he likely was still with the teleporter when Wally grabbed him, Diana thought.

She also agreed with what he said. "It could be hallucinogens of some description. I have no doubt that their effects would be magnified by his telepathy."

John nodded. "That's what I'm thinking. And if you wanted to infect the rest of us? It'd only make sense to wait until he was on the Watchtower. Close proximity's the best friend a terrorist could possibly have."

"Jumping the gun a bit there, aren't you?" Shayera said. John folded his arms over his chest and took up a more relaxed position.

"Sure. A little, yeah. I'm not saying this is terrorism. Hell, I'm not even sure this is a chemical attack yet. I'm just pointing out how we could hit max damage pretty quickly up here."

Diana saw Bruce scratch at his chin, doing what he always did when running options through his mind at the speed of light. Judging from his body language, Diana predicted he was about to agree with the group consensus. He probably wouldn't have started an argument considering the circumstances, but she was glad everyone was in agreement all the same. One look at J'onn was enough to melt even the steeliest of exteriors; among the League though, there truly weren't any exteriors like that so far as she could see.

"We'll need to start quarantining off the Watchtower then," Bruce said eventually, proving Diana right. "We throw caution to the wind and this could be the epicenter of a pandemic."

"Bonus points: we don't get sick either," Wally said. Diana saw a sheepish look grow on his face, then heard him say, "And, well…don't wanna sound like an a-hole or anything, but the best way to do that is, you know, to give J'onn some space." Under his breath he said, "Sorry big guy—nothing personal, really."

"After the length of time we have been next to him," Diana said, "I doubt we have avoided contacting whatever he is carrying." She walked next to Wally and put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. "We have equipment to deal with that, so I see no reason to fear just yet. But Wally is right—we should let J'onn be. Let him rest."

"Then we'll get the quarantine up and running," John said. "See if he's any better after we're done. Shouldn't be too long considering how the teleporters are being held together with duct-tape."

"That just leaves the tests and decontamination," Bruce said, nodding his head. "Simple enough. Let's get moving, then. I need to make a quick call—

( _right, call Clark; make sure he is aware of our circumstances)_

—but after that, we'll start cleaning the place. If we don't find anything, we're going to need to brainstorm other possibilities." He paused, looked out of the window into the black of space. "I don't like this…" he muttered.

( _I would just so happen to be in complete agreement with you Bruce…What happened to J'onn is enough to make_ anyone _paranoid…_ )

( _By the gods, poor J'onn…_ )

"You go," Diana said. "Get ready. I will ensure that J'onn is comfortable, or at the very least stable."

Diana watched Bruce's head shoot back around. He looked startled at first, but then again he had also looked deep in thought just a second earlier. Diana knew that Bruce took every loss—every injury—quite personally, as though he himself had failed the victim no matter what his involvement might be. She wondered if he was trying to hide what he was feeling; looking around, it seemed like _everyone_ was hiding what they were feeling, even her. J'onn had scared them, and if there was one thing that the Justice League seemed unwilling to show, it was fear. Superheroics had a strict code of conduct, after all.

Eventually, Bruce answered Diana. "You sure?" he said. Diana nodded.

"I am. I have tended to wounds before, and you have an important call to make. It should not take me very long—I just want to be sure that he is at peace."

"Sounds good to me," John said, rising to his full height. "Shayera—wanna accompany me while I get all the invasive medical devices?"

"Right," she said. "Because nothing puts me more at ease than spending quality time with needles."

"And quality time with me?"

"Jee," Shayera said. "I take that back—are the needles free?"

With that, John and Shayera began to exit the med-bay. Wally followed closely behind, saying "I—um, make sure he's…yeah, make sure he's comfortable Di," as he left. Diana smiled and watched him go.

( _You do not need to feel bad about being afraid, Wally—it makes you no less of a friend to J'onn_ )

"You're sure," she heard Bruce say, and for a second she wondered—despite herself—if he had read her mind. She realized as she turned to face him that he was just repeating his question from earlier. She nodded her head, and gave Bruce a weak smile.

"I truly am, Bruce. Please, you need to contact Clark—you are needed elsewhere."

She watched his brow rise briefly, then fall back into a neutral position. "Guess I'm making the right call then, hailing Clark. In that case, I'll meet up with you when we're done."

"Agreed," Diana said. "We will meet up when we are done."

As Bruce left the medbay and Diana's eyes fell over J'onn, her mind went back to what she told Wally earlier:

( _"No reason to fear"….I am not sure I believe that myself, I truly am not…_ )

But she pushed that aside and focused on the task at hand, letting the medical training she had received with the Amazon's guide her hands. It was almost an unconscious effort—the sign of years-worth of practice—but it left her conscious thoughts free enough to wander, free enough to speculate. Free enough to ask questions.

( _What in the name of Hades happened to him?_ )

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **Now, you may ask yourself: "How is this a BM/WW fanfic?" You may ask yourself: "did Two-Eyed Charlie lie to me?" You may tell yourself: "This is not my beautiful house." You may tell yourself: "This is not my beautiful wife!"**

 **Ahem. Sorry. Got carried away with the Talking Heads references. You know how it is.**

 **So, yeah, hopefully you're not super disappointed that this isn't intensely romantic. I'll be honest with you, I know how this site works: you only get views and such if there's shipping involved. That's...well that's the reality. And since I'm scum (I know it, you know it, our Lord and Savior Tim Curry knows it), and I need personal validation from strangers on the internet, well...I just crave those views and reviews. Hence why they're paired up on the description thingy (heh...I mean, that's the second time I've made that joke, but still...).**

 **Since I used to write a lot of BM/WW fanfiction, and I do like how they play off one another, there's definitely going to be a lot of interactions between the two of them, and some romantic chemistry might work its way in their no matter what I do (I just write the damn thing, after all), but I wouldn't fully classify this as a shipping fic. Even less so than "Behold a Pale Horse," if you want a comparison.**

 ** **Hopefully you don't hate me (feel free to hate me though, I deserve it), but I just thought I should be honest - in the event you came here looking for shipping - what the game plan will likely be in that regard. Sorry about that.****

 ** ** ** **Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the first part of the story and stick around for more. Since I don't outline my stories anymore, I'm just as intrigued to see who survives as you guys!********

 ** ** ** **Thanks for reading!********

 ** ** ** **(oh, and Happy Holidays, of course)********


	2. Chapter 2

**Here be Part II, for your Christmasy enjoyment.**

 **I can't say that you should expect another update as soon as possible, because, you know, lying is a sin and all that. But hopefully the next chapter or part or whatever it should be called gets finished soon.**

 **Anyways, thanks for reading!**

* * *

 **Who Goes There?**

 **III**

Diana closed the door to the med-bay a short time later, then inspected herself to make sure she was clean. She'd covered herself in medical garments and hadn't been required to perform invasive surgery, but merely ensuring that J'onn was comfortable ended up being a far messier process than originally expected. There was blood that had to be cleaned, and what Diana assumed was the Martian equivalent of sweat; it sloughed off in handfuls whenever she attempted to set an arm or raise a leg. The spasms coursing through J'onn's body—the unnatural, jerking shakes that seemed to crack at his bones whenever they occurred— had gotten worse as well, and one with an epicenter near the base of J'onn's neck had flung a wad of Martian blood across the room. Diana grew increasingly heartbroken the more she looked at J'onn: he was not a vain man, and did not come to embarrassment easily, but seeing how helpless he was and _knowing_ what he would say if he was conscious…well, it was hard enough seeing strangers suffer like this. J'onn, by comparrison, had been a close friend for almost as long as Diana had been in Man's World.

His condition also left her increasingly curious, and Diana found herself focusing more and more on that aspect (to a growing chorus of personal displeasure in her head). J'onn was completely non-responsive—a textbook example of a comatose patient, if the Glasgow Scale was as accurate as it claimed—and yet the shaking was far too violent to be random, to be possible in a body operating under minimal neuron activity. Diana considered possible explanations—none of them managed to be anything less than horrifying.

It was like his mind was trapped in something, like it was caught in an electrical whirlwind that sent feedback into his body. He was an organic circuit breaker, able to feel pain but unable to move of his own volition. Diana quickly ran an EEG scan and had to admit that she was close to the truth: his brain activity was unprecedented, a constant reaction to extreme sensory experience. That wouldn't be possible if he was comatose; J'onn's mind was, at that moment, experiencing something that he couldn't escape from.

( _I have no mouth, and I must scream…_ )

Diana nearly hit herself for that thought, then told herself that raiding the sedatives cabinet was her next best course of action. She checked the data that she had collected (along with J'onn and Bruce) about the different tolerances to sedatives for each member of the League, and then matched the upper recommended limit for J'onn to one decimal point. His brainwaves remained consistently high for an unbearably anxious moment, but soon his neural activity started subsiding until it was closer to what would be experienced during sleep, and the shaking nearly disappeared shortly after. Eventually, J'onn looked relaxed, was even breathing at a normal rate. That was when Diana decided she was done, that she _had_ to be done—she'd join up with the rest of the League, tell them J'onn was stable, then submit to the tests and decontamination process.

( _I wish I could say he is going to be all right, but merely being stable will have to do…_ )

( _Be well J'onn—I hope I will be back soon_.)

But her mind was jumbled, was stuck on a loop where the film solely featured J'onn and how he was found. As she exited the med-bay and closed the door behind her, she realized that she had been unable to look away from her friend as she left. It was like she expected him to get worse the moment she averted her gaze, as if sirens and machines would call out the time of his death before she could even get the door open again. She turned her head away quickly and started down the hall, but her thoughts stayed in the med-bay.

( _Hera, how badly was I affected? Was this a chemical attack? Or is it far worse to pass off these thoughts as an aberration while my friend suffers?_ )

A burst of static—the call of the anxiety that had been following her for a month—buzzed in her ears, hinting at an answer to her questions. Diana ignored it: such an action was not normal for her (she thought deeply about things most people preferred never to even consider; that was the nature of her job in politics and on the Watchtower), but at that moment, she felt it would only be a weight around her legs. Unconsciously, she began to pick up her pace.

The whole procedure had taken a hair less than forty five minutes. It likely wouldn't have taken even half that amount for Bruce to contact Clark, for John and Shayera to round up the _equipment_ they needed. The rest of the League would understand, even without an explanation, but Diana increased her pace as she moved towards the monitor womb anyways. She told them to call her if she was running behind schedule, and while no call had come while she was tending to J'onn she told herself to do everything possible to speed up their time-table, even if it was ultimately a futile gesture. After all, the sooner they declared themselves clean of any chemical or biological weapons, the sooner they could tend to J'onn and have some peace of mind after a traumatic morning.

When Diana reached the monitor room she saw that everyone was still waiting for Clark's response, for the go-ahead to do what was needed up here while he marshalled resources down below. There was an air of impatience in the concourse, or nerves maybe—the two would often blend together, mask themselves as one or another depending on the environment. Bruce was near the top, fiddling with a set of equipment he likely didn't need to fiddle with. John and Shayera were sitting at a desk together, talking sporadically. Every now-and-again Shayera would look at Wally—who was leaning against a near-by wall—and tell him to stop tapping his foot so loudly. He would apologize and stop for all of three seconds before starting again, and Shayera would let him tap for another ten seconds before telling him to stop all over again. She did this twice while Diana was moving towards Bruce, and Diana could hear Shayera's voice growing courser every time she spoke. Diana sent a mental message to Clark to hurry up and reply to Bruce, ignoring the voice in her head that berated her for the useless gesture. If the League got at each other's throats then J'onn's recovery would be jeopardized, and while Diana knew she didn't need to remind her friends of that fact, there was still no guarantee that calm would win out over tension and annoyance.

She shook her head as she reached Bruce. He didn't immediately turn around from his make-shift work station, but he did address her when she stopped behind him.

"We were getting worried," he said. The fiddling stopped as he finally turned around.

"J'onn is stable," Diana said back. "I know that is not good enough for any of us, but he is better off than when we found him at least."

"No… _complications_?" His voice sounded like he was desperately trying to hold his concern, and that he was losing painfully. Diana softened her own voice as much as circumstance would allow.

"There…I needed to use sedatives. Quite a lot of them, if I am being honest. I cannot say that he stabilized on his own or that I think it is permanent—lying would…it would do us no good, Bruce."

"No need to tell me that," Bruce said, his voice hushed. He looked over at Wally, who was unconsciously using the wall as a drum-kit. "Might not hurt to sugar-coat if for the others, though."

"I think they already assume the worst," Diana said, cringing as Shayera stood up from her seat. It looked like she was going to march towards Wally with her mace—and Diana felt her legs tense for the inevitable peacekeeping mission she'd have to undertake—but Shayera hesitated a second, looked down at the floor, then shook her head and sat back down. Her mace stayed where it was, stashed at her side and completely inert. Diana watched John's hand slowly move over the table and gently cover Shayera's, cover it and squeeze and receive an appreciative grip in return.

Diana and Bruce breathed a sigh of relief.

"Clark needs to hurry the hell up," Bruce said. He had started fidgeting again, prompting Diana to move around him and place her hand over his. The equipment was set down shortly after, but Diana could detect a hint of displeasure, as though checking dials and re-checking circuits was the only thing keeping Bruce sane at the moment.

"We know it is not intentional," Diana said, hoping to put Bruce at ease as much as she could. "Someone is likely in need of his help. Otherwise he would have called almost immediately."

"Calling me isn't the problem," Bruce said. "Because you're right, he got back to me right away. Nearly blew out an entire city-block's worth of windows getting to his apartment, or so Lois says."

"You were waiting for _me_ , then?"

Bruce shook his head and gave her a sympathetic look. Diana realized then that her voice had noticeably carried her anxiety— _far_ too noticeably, in fact. "No no, that's—we would've given you as much time as you needed. _More_ than that, even—J'onn's health is 90% of the reason we're doing all of this anyways."

Diana nearly asked 'Then why have we not started testing?' but stopped herself just as the question was forming. She could venture a guess as to the 'why', though if the answer ended up being 'yes' she expected the questions to keep flowing, possibly quite forcefully.

"Are we waitingfor _Clark_ , then? I was under the impression that you were _briefing_ him, maybe warning him to _stay away_."

"That was the plan, yes," Bruce said, a little defensively. "If I had my way that's _exactly_ what I would have done, before Wally had the chance to beat a fist-shaped hole into my wall."

"And you told him your plan as such?"

"I'm not _lying_ to you, Diana," Bruce said, now _much_ more defensively than before. "Lying does us no good, you said so _yourself_. I told Clark what was happening and I was _clear_ when I said he should stay put, his personal feelings be damned."

Diana crossed her arms. "He insisted then? He _insisted_ , did he not? Hades, _why_ would he do that? If this was an attack he is only going to expose _himself_!" Diana's mind conjured up images of J'onn on the medical table with his spasms and the blood dripping from his eyes, from the screams she and Shayera heard earlier that morning, of the life-support systems pumping into a slab of meat and the funny feeling that had been haunting her all month and the notion of containment being broken and—

She caught herself before the images carried her away. Her nerves were beyond frayed—they were burnt beyond recognition now. A pang of embarrassment almost worked its way into her consciousness before she violently beat it back; feeling bad about an outburst, she knew, was as counter-productive as covering up her emotions in the first place.

It was that funny feeling—the damn superstitious nonsense that had been dogging her for so long—and it was making her jumpy, amplifying everything that passed through her mind like a megaphone. No, not amplifying: even the most unfeeling individuals would be put off by seeing their friend in such a state. The problem was that it was _consuming_ her thoughts, mauling them and spitting them out in weird shapes, in disorienting patterns. She'd never ignored her emotions or her thoughts before, but now she felt _compelled to_ , because every though—every flutter in her soul—seemed to suggest that the end of the world was just around the corner. Diana wasn't superstitious, no—but she was a human being, and humans would always be frightened of what they didn't understand.

( _Which is why you are about to enrage your friend right in front of you—your friend who is just as scared as you are. Stop this Diana, take control._ )

Diana's arms went back to her side, and she looked at Bruce apologetically. She inhaled as deep a breath as her lungs could manage. "I…am sorry, Bruce. I should not be so flippant. To you or to Clark."

She couldn't tell if he was poised for a fight or not. Speculating about it would only add to the unease embedded in this conversation, so she simply waited patiently for his reply. Eventually, Bruce sighed. "I'm not helping matters. Neither is Clark, if I'm being honest."

"He is scared—for _us_ more than anything else. If either you or I were on Earth, we would insist on doing the same." Diana knew that was the truest thing she could say at that moment, and she mentally kicked herself for not automatically coming to that realization. _I should have lead with that_ , she told herself, her words biting and coarse. The League had been a close-knit family for what felt like decades, and Diana could always find instances where she felt she wasn't living up to what that entailed. J'onn had repeatedly assured her otherwise, as had Clark, as had Wally and Bruce and Shayera, but Diana was critical by nature—of herself more than anything else. That was why, she hoped, this feeling of teetering over a ravine was still with her, still nipping at her brainstem. Her propensity to find a fault and seek to extinguish it was simply serving as a conduit, and that was all.

Bruce—who knew those feelings as well as she did, who shared a far more similar psychology to her than either of them often would admit—paused and looked down at his gloves. "You're saying we wouldn't have any common sense either?" he said eventually. His tone was lighter—for Batman, anyways—and Diana took it to mean that the situation had been resolved. She gave Bruce a smile, happy for at least a small victory.

"Friendship does mangle the brain, yes. But he is just trying to help. I am sure you— _we_ —understand that."

Bruce paused again, then turned around to stared at the nearest control panel. "I should've been more forceful, maybe threaten to shoot his shuttle down. If it's close enough to atmosphere he probably wouldn't run out of air."

"You _are_ joking, correct?" Diana's arms returned to their folded position, though there was a small smirk on her lips. She was reading Bruce's body language, and she was pretty sure she was right.

"Sure I am," Bruce said, upping the sarcasm in his voice. He turned around again and dropped in intonations to normal levels. "No, I am—honest. I think Clark is being an idiot, but I get it. Then again, we might all just be paranoid."

"We are all certainly on edge, but being the opposite is no genius move on our part either."

( _And surely that is not just rationalization on my part. Surely._ )

" 'Everything in moderation,'" Bruce said. "That about right?"

"Indeed," said Diana, pushing away her other thought, "though I choose to ignore how the last person who said that had twice your net-worth."

"Try-hard," a voice said to their right. Both Diana and Bruce turned around abruptly and saw that it was Shayera, apparently having decided to make her way towards them while they were otherwise occupied. "By the way, you guys done? 'Cause Clark just landed, unless everything except the toaster is broken up here."

Diana bit back the urge to ask how long Shayera had been standing there. Bruce, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"And how long have you been standing there, exactly?" he said, his arms disappearing underneath his cloak.

"Far longer than either of you are comfortable with," Shayera replied, "but I had a good time—that's what matters. Seriously though—John went to have a talk with Wally and I'm afraid one of them is going to start crying. We should get a move on, meet him in the hanger. Something like that."

Shayera turned on her heel and started walking before Bruce or Diana could say anything in return. Diana watched her signal to John and Wally at the far edge of the monitor room, both of them looking quiet and uneasy, resenting themselves for saying nothing to the person next to them. They got to their feet and joined Shayera almost immediately—it was like they were in an overcrowded waiting room which, Diana reflected, wasn't as far off the mark as she wanted to admit.

"You're right," Bruce said. "We're on edge. They're acting like a bomb just went off. And yes, I ought to include myself there. I'm..."jittery" too—just...better at hiding it."

"I appreciate the honesty," Diana said. She squeezed his shoulder, gave him a genuine smile, and started off towards the hanger. "I am sorry to say that I am far less adept at that. Any Amazon that does not wear her heart on her sleeve gets shot with an arrow." She ignored the lie—ignored it and the funny feeling it covered up and focused instead of making jokes, on putting one foot in front of the other, on anything besides the fact that intangible clockwork was sliding things into place, putting events in motion that she could only sense but not grasp. Her sense of danger was not increasing—her lizard brain was no more active than before she discovered J'onn—but it was there, a low and haphazard drum in her ears.

( _And yet I am not superstitious…_ )

She sighed despite herself. Exhaustion was seeping into her body, and she remembered that she'd only taken to the air once that day. Her mental gymnastics—they were burning up energy like a faulty coal power plant.

She noticed Bruce give her a long look, then say, "That's a shame. You could've turned out like me otherwise." He followed that up with a light tap on her arm, his hand still buried under his cloak. He bobbed his head in the direction of the hanger, implying that they really should get moving.

"Come on," he said, "let's go yell at Clark."

Diana nodded, loudly exhaling at the same time. "He will most assuredly appreciate your welcome."

"He damn well better," Bruce said, looking straight ahead. "That's _my_ shuttle he's flying."

Diana shook her head, and let Bruce pull away from her. She thought to herself:

( _Great Hera—somehow, I think he is the_ least _uptight out of all of us. The world is surely coming to an end_.)

Her sarcasm, she noticed, did nothing to dull the bitter taste of that statement.

And so Diana walked on in silence.

 **IV**

The trip to the hanger was mercifully short, but Diana still felt like she was moving through an electrical current. A voice in the back of her head joked that J'onn would probably appreciate just how worried everyone was—how worried _she_ was—but a sharp crack of her mental whip quieted her mind before any more thoughts like that could emerge. Humour may have been a coping mechanism, but right now "coping" seemed an awful lot like "willful ignorance."

Diana was the last one into the hanger: the area was depressurized and the shuttle put away, leaving a large arena for the League to congregate in. Clark and Bruce were naturally talking to one another, likely _had_ been talking to one another from the moment Clark's boots hit the floor. The rest of the League—

( _the rest of the_ conscious _League…_ )

—stood off to the side, waiting either for directions or some hint that Clark was fully up to speed. Diana chose to stand next to them, though she remained within ear-shot of Bruce and Clark; if things started getting heated (and—by the gods—that was almost as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning), she would step in and play peacekeeper. One of the elements of being best friends, she reflected, happened to involve brutally honesty with one another, to the point where personal feelings didn't factor in until long after the conversation had ended.

( _And that would be fine any other day;_ not _this one, however…_ )

Things sounded fine, though— _stable_ , at the very least. She let her mind move away from Clark and Bruce, focusing instead on the rest of the group. Shayera and Wally were taking turns saying short sentences to one another, leaving John more or less isolated. She moved beside him and smiled when he turned to look at her.

"Would you believe that Clark practically threw the shuttle into its parking spot?" he said. Diana nodded.

"I would be surprised if he had _not_ ," she said. "Farmers do understand a time-table as well as anyone."

"Yeah, thank god." John cast a glance at Shayera and Wally: the younger redhead had said something that got a small laugh out of Shayera, though it looked as though it may have been out of pity rather than comedic talent. She remembered his comments in the med-bay, the little inflections in his voice that he tried so desperately to cover up. Listening in to Bruce and Clark, Diana figured there was enough time for a status report—the health of the rest of the League was, after all, as big a concern for her as J'onn at the moment.

"How would you say he is doing?" she asked John. He was silent for a second, then shrugged his shoulders.

" About as well as he can be. He's…I don't know, he's not exactly green, but I always think of the age gap."

"I am more worried about how he is treating himself," Diana said. "We have all been affected—this did hit very close to home—but I feel as though Wally is preventing himself from being vulnerable, from showing _weakness_."

"Yeah," John said, and Diana could sense that he had clipped his sentence short.

( _You were about to say that he is not the only one—I can tell. And no, John, he certainly is not._ )

"We should discuss this after we have taken care of J'onn," Diana said. "We should ensure that all of us are all right."

"Think we'll go for it?" John looked at Shayera. "Some of us would rather do a space-walk without a suit."

"Whether we will and whether we _ought_ to are two separate issues," Diana said, and again another crack of her mental whip told her to recognize the irony in her words. She added, "But, not, I see your point John," and decided that would have to do. Bruce and Clark were finished—it was time to start the tests.

"We're skipping the tests," Bruce said suddenly, and for the second time in less than an hour Diana wondered whether he was reading her mind. Shaking her head, she turned around to face the other two members of the Trinity.

"Is that wise?" she said. She resisted the urge to cross her arms—there was method to this madness, there _had_ to be.

"It's a contingency," he said back. "In case we're running out of time. We skip to decontamination and focus on getting J'onn better."

"Maybe he can tell us what happened himself," Clark added.

"So we're locking down the Watchtower then." Shayera said, walking up behind Diana. "Tight as possible, right?"

"That's the plan," Bruce said.

"So we're stuck up here," Wally said, also appearing behind Diana. "Great, yeah, OK—I understand."

Diana turned around. "As I said, we need not fear just yet." She saw Wally give her an appreciative glance and ignored another crack of the whip in her head, this one directed at nothing in particular. A wave of paranoia followed, and Diana jerked her head back towards Bruce and Clark far faster than she intended.

"Since we're not planning on going anywhere," Clark said, "we don't need to worry about contaminating anyone on Earth."

" _If_ this is a chemical attack," Bruce added. "There are other possibilities still in play."

"Regardless, we can focus our efforts. That all right with everyone?"

Three sets of heads nodded. Diana ran the plan quickly over in her head, found no real flaws, then nodded in agreement as well. She had questions though—more than one, and all of them directed at the man in the blue and red costume.

( _Later_ …)

"I believe we are in agreement," Diana said. "In that case, we should not delay."

"Agreed." Bruce's cape swirled around him as he pivoted and started out of the hanger. "We'll use the decontamination hub outside the hanger. Short walk, but let's keep a hurried pace."

More nods of agreement. Shayera, John, and Wally followed after Bruce—Clark next. Diana slid into place next to Clark and, considering her options for future conversations (it was about to get busy, she could tell), she placed herself in the periphery of his vision to get his attention.

"Hey Di," he said. "Sorry I'm late."

"I was surprised you came at all," she said. "At first, anyways. But J'onn will appreciate you being here, I am sure of it."

"Yeah," Clark said. "That's what Bruce said, after he stopped yelling at me. Same goes for Lois, though, well," he smiled sheepishly, "I'm pretty sure I'm sleeping on the couch for a while."

"She is just looking at for you," Diana said. "Something would be very much askew if she did not make that known _forcefully_."

"Yeah," Clark said. "She's the toughest person I know—no contest. Err, no offense."

"None taken." They were close to the decontamination area now—Bruce was already at the controls and the rest of the group was piling in.

"But still, I should probably warn Alfred," Clark said. "I think she threatened to send Bruce some anthrax. Premium postage of course."

Diana nearly stopped in her tracks. The buzzing in her ears returned, now sounded like a chorus of angry voices. It didn't make sense, what Clark had just said—on some level it seemed profoundly off. _Why_ would Lois be mad at Bruce—for not _stopping him_? That didn't sound like Lois; she knew just how stubborn Bruce was, what Clark breaking through anyways would mean.

"Why would—" Diana paused, now fully standing still. Her and Clark were close to Bruce, and he was staring at both of them. "I thought—I was under the impression…did Bruce not ask you to stay?"

The look on Clark's face said no, he very much did not.

"I…no, no that was what I was _going_ to do," Clark said, sounding as though the words were stuck in his throat. "I thought that—" He turned to Bruce. "What the hell have you been telling people?"

"What's the hold-up?" Shayera called out from the decontamination area. One look at the situation—at Clark and Diana's glare, how it was directed at Bruce—stopped her in her tracks as well.

"Bruce," Diana said, "you _told_ me—"

"Something's not right," Clark said. He started backing up towards Diana, his hands fumbling at his sides.

"Why would he lie?" she asked him. Then, changing her gaze to, "Bruce, why would you _lie_? About _this,_ of all things."

Clark stopped just a few feet in front of Diana—now equidistant between her and Bruce. Bruce was moving away from the control panel, was slowly letting his cloak cover his body fully.

"His heartbeat," Clark said, narrowing his vision. "I can't…there's something off about it, something—"

"I am assuming it is not anxiety," Diana said, straining her ears to listen as well. She caught it, she caught the heartbeat. It sounded unnatural, sounded…

( _artificial_ )

Her hand moved towards her lasso, and instinctively she took up a defensive position.

Then the skin on Bruce's face split open, and a scream from the depths of Hell rang throughout the Watchtower.

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **He's probably fine. Just a flesh wound.**

 **Anyways, thanks a ton for reading and for reviewing! Hope you guys are enjoying things so far (I know _I'm_ not a ball of anxiety right now...just kidding, writing out anything involving this movie scares the living piss out of me). **

**Just as a heads-up, from this point on the gore factor _will_ increase. Not to ludicrous levels, but, you know, hopefully enough to make John Carpenter proud. **

**Or make Keith David vomit, whichever one.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Long-ass update, just in time for New Years Eve (goody, the progression of time continues onward, whether I want it to or not).**

 **I'll include a language and gore-related warning here. I'm probably really, _really_ stretching the "T" rating, but, you know, rating something "M" is a bit...risky? Let's just say that if I included a pairing without it really being a pairing story, then you can understand the depths of "strategic omission" I will sink to just to get a few extra views or reviews or what-not. So, yeah, rating it "M" kinda cuts into that plan. **

**But if enough people think I should then by all means, let me know.**

 **Anyways, thanks as always for reading and for reviewing - this is turning out longer than anticipated but, hey, it's not like _The Thing_ was a fast-paced movie either. It had a pace that was necessary for you never looking at your dog again, lest it turn into a literal puddle. **

**Fun times, Mr. Carpenter.**

* * *

 **Who Goes There?**

 **V**

The only thing Diana consciously saw—the only thing she _could_ have consciously seen, she would reflect on later—was the gore-covered skull behind the remains of Bruce's face staring at her, _screaming_ at her. Whether it was the propensity of the human eye to see patterns that weren't there or a horrid truth that her very essence refused to recognize, it looked as though the otherwise rigid contours of Bruce's skull were forcefully pulled into a look of pure terror. Diana would settle on it being just a trick of the retinas for at least a little while, but as her time on the Watchtower stretched onward into insanity, she increasingly came to believe that the latter explanation had equal plausibility to the first.

But at that moment—at the moment immediately preceding the flesh on Bruce's face tearing itself apart—Diana's attention was singularly focused on his skull. Her mind's eye did not see the mass of red and hissing tentacles pull away from the flaps of Bruce's skin; it did not see them shoot out at a stunned Clark, his feet plastered to the floor like they had been merged into the metal. And her mind's eye did not see her hands reach for her lasso, flick its open end towards her friend, and pull with calculated strength as the tendrils nearly reached his throat. Diana's conscious mind took over from her training—her engineered and developed instinct—only as the weight of Clark slammed into her chest and her arms closed around him, trying to steady his balance before he fell and left himself vulnerable to attack. To Diana, that all had happened over the course of a torturously long second, one that had waded into liquid amber just as the fluid was starting to harden. The stretching of time granted her the privilege of staring attentively at Bruce's face—searing the thin layer of veiny red that hung loosely from his bones forever into her brain—as well as the burden of only a flashing second to decide what to do next once the normal flow of time had been restored.

Diana turned to the rest of her friends near the decontamination chamber and screamed, " _Run_!"

Later—during a quieter moment when she would let her mind wander from the reality in front of her—Diana asked herself how she knew that Bruce couldn't be touched, that if ranged weapons were not available the only logical course of action for any of them was to run, run as fast as they possibly could. She thought it was possibly a guess that the trauma of seeing their friend (what was _left_ of their friend) mutate into a quivering, screaming nightmare of bones and gore would not allow for an effective fighting strategy, might even result in a total system shutdown if fighting was even attempted. But that was only a guess—and not one she felt comfortable trusting, all things considered. Too convenient; too much of a _leap_. All she could be truly confident in, at that moment of reflection, was that after telling the rest of the League to retreat, the thing that had been hiding behind Bruce's identity showed them just how aggressive—just how _capable_ —it really was.

The tendrils snapped at the air particles where Diana and Clark had been standing, and then "Bruce" let out a piercing cry, one that sounded like the fusion of a man and a wolf being fed into a fire. Bubbles of flesh formed on his hands, then were sliced into ribbons as the bones underneath sharpened into sword-length blades. Diana barely managed to throw Clark clear as "Bruce" lunged at them, stabbing and slashing at where the nearest torso would have been. Rolling underneath the attack, Diana had to dodge a fresh tendril—one that broke through back of the Batman suit—before she managed to get out of range, before the distance between her and "Bruce" could be considered _safe_. She reached the fallen Clark and pulled him to his feet via his arms, but she could still hear the hissing, the growling of a thousand creatures in pain. The rest of the League was still there though—still there and standing with blank expressions and open mouths.

" _John_!" Diana said. "Covering fire! _Now_!"

John shook his head, snapping himself back into reality, and then quickly brought his ring up. "Right, c'mon _c'mon_!"

A green energy blast passed over her head as Diana pushed Clark into a sprint. Both of their heads pivoted in order to watch John's energy blast barrel towards "Bruce"—

( _not Bruce NOT Bruce—stop using that name, stop giving that thing his_ face)

—but the thing was too quick, to unnaturally limber. It twisted its body with the sounds of shearing marrow as the blast struck the wall of the hanger, missing every inch of the creature. It scuttled off into a darkened corner of the hanger just as John was charging up his ring again, then dropped behind a stack of crates that covered a heavily bolted service entrance. The metal covering was torn off like it was a scab, and after uttering one last inhuman cry it slithered through the opening, pulling all sound with it as the Watchtower fell into a drumming, suffocating silence. The League finally ran until their jelly filled knees could no longer carry them without protest.

( _chest hurts…suffocating…_ )

Diana noticed then that she wasn't breathing. She took in shallow breaths quickly, perhaps too quickly, expecting a round of anxiety-induced shaking to follow as soon as her body tried to return to normal. But the shakes didn't come—there was only a low buzzing in her ears, the weak remains of her funny feeling that had itself mutated into something so, so much worse.

( _Gods, I…Bruce…_ )

She was not the only one struggling to put what she had seen into words; that much she knew immediately. Clark was staring straight ahead like a mannequin, while the only noise the rest of the League made as the slouched against the nearest wall was the occasional scratching, a sound that came from the soles of boots that were unsure of where they should next step.

John was the first to break the silence.

"You gotta be fucking kidding…"

Diana saw Shayera towards at John, but before she could say anything the life drained out of her glare and her snarl. Her eyes returned quietly to the same patch of floor they had been staring at before.

"Was that…" Wally said. "I mean…" Something wet got lodged in Wally's throat, something that stuck there as he tried to speak. "That wasn't Bruce, right? That was…that was something else. Something that got into his suits or—or…" His voice dropped again; likely, Diana thought, to hide the uncontrollable shaking she heard.

With his lowered voice he said: "We didn't just watch Bruce tear himself apart like that. Couldn't've—we _can't_ have…" Then there was silence. Wally's mouth clamped shut, and his shoulders began to shake.

As much as Diana thought— _knew_ —that Wally could use a supportive shoulder or someone to look in the eyes—someone to show him they cared and _understood_ —she couldn't get herself to stand, not just yet. The joints in her knees had liquidated the moment Bruce had begun to—

( _No, Hera NO do NOT use his name he is NOT that thing he is NOT that creature he is NOT_ —)

—her mind refused to let her finish. She knew what she saw; denying it now would do neither her nor the rest of the League any good. Denying herself from _feeling_ what she felt would be equally a liability, a sink-hole that she could throw more and more baggage into until soon she was a husk, ripe for the creature to stalk and hunt. She had to work through it, let herself feel. Yes, feel and work through it and put _one foot in front of_ —

Her eyes dropped to the floor. It was _down there_ somewhere, below a thin layer of sheet metal and wiring. The metal could barely handle an errant kick, let alone a creature that could do _that_ —

( _I watched his hands turn to blades_ )

—with its component parts. It had vanished by a service entrance; where else could it be?

"We need to move," Diana said, finding her legs. "And stay off the floor if you can. Wally," she turned to him and grabbed his arm, "I can give you a lift—make sure you are not left out to dry." She watched his eyes, hoping he would understand the double meaning behind her words. The meaning she had covered so as not to give the appearance of calling him out in front of everyone else. It wasn't just him: Clark was Bruce's best friend, he would be struggling. And John and Shayera and—yes, they were his friends too, and they were caring and kind people, _loving_ people. They would be hurting, would be carrying that feeling in their very essence that can only come from someone you care about being hurt. It was not just him, he had to know that. But his eyes didn't meet her own: they remained fixed on the ground.

"Christ," Diana heard Shayera say, instinctively spinning around. "Yeah, everyone up." She looked at John. "Seriously, _up_ —I really can't handle watching you get pulled through the floorboards. I just can't."

John nodded. "Neither can I," he said. It sounded like he was going to try and add a touch of humour but it died on his lips. Green light poured over his body and soon he was in the air, floating next to Shayera. Wally silently wrapped his arms around Diana's shoulders, and she too began to rise, just high enough that there was significant distance between her head and the roof, her feet and the floor. The only one still on the ground was Clark. His eyes, Diana saw, had not moved either.

( _Not just you either, Clark…please know that_ )

"Clark," she said, dropping down so she could put a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Clark, please. I—"

( _I know I do I really, truly do_ )

"—understand. But please, we cannot stay here. _You_ cannot stay here."

But Clark did stay, for at least a second longer. Long enough for Diana to tighten her grip and consider hauling him herself, despite such an action presenting the risk of further demoralizing him—the others, too. He did rise eventually, though, saying "Sorry" in such a low voice that it would have been a whisper to anyone without advanced hearing. He repeated it louder as he rose, turned, faced the rest of his friends with as impassive a face as he could manage. Diana nodded, left her hand on his shoulder a while longer, and when she was sure he would at least be able to fly she took off, adjusting Wally's arm as she went so that a tight grip was assured.

The rest of the League followed behind her.

 **VI**

Diana had never noticed the creaking noises a sub-orbital space station frequently made (there was always something else that demanded her attention, after all), but as per the ever nebulous "human condition" that people were chained to from birth to death, every groan of every girder now sounded to her like a crack of thunder in a mountain valley. Every corner became a choke-point for traps or ambushes or even just a simple " _boo_!" assuming this thing had a sense of humour. It would be bad to assume it had a sense of humour, _horrible even_. If this thing could display human qualities, it certainly hadn't done so yet.

But despite scanning the halls like she was a drone, her mind was really only half there, half in the combat zone it clearly needed to occupy. It was a struggle to keep Bruce's name away from that thing—a struggle she was losing—and Diana knew that without a name, this creature seemed out of focus, almost _abstract_ in its twisted mockery of existence. Her training was still telling her to ignore the pain and mourn later (Bruce was dead, she knew that she had to admit it was true; whatever that thing was had either killed him or—and she felt her stomach nearly churn just thinking this—it _was_ him). The risk, the potential carnage—she couldn't hesitate, couldn't spare even the slightest bit of focus. Focus on doing what would inevitably would need to be done to protect herself and the others, to prevent what happened to Bruce from happening to her or others. But everything else—every human and feeling part of her—pushed back, warned her that too much clinical detachment would eventually pile up, form a malignant clog, and either force all her supressed thoughts onto the very instincts she needed to stay alive or inadvertently drive her completely insane.

( _And so I can laugh while I am consumed._ )

No, if she thought that the others must be open about their feelings, about what had happened right in front of them, then Diana must do the same. And it needed to be done, they needed to deal with _everything_ that was happening fully and not leave anything repressed, for now or for later. Didn't they?

( _Don't we?_ )

But it was difficult to fathom, even for someone like her who had argued this necessity over and over again, in every imaginable scenario for every imaginable person. Being open about the causes of anger or sadness was different than what was happening on the Watchtower: you could solve you anger, accept your sadness, but to save yourself from insanity, how could you possibly just let it sit in your mind and rot? Every neuron and every clump of grey matter would fight and expel it before you could even think of a name.

( _I can feel it right now—I can feel my mind trying to close off, leave instinct to its own devices)_

( _I will be dead by tomorrow morning, won't I?_ )

Before she could answer that question, Diana felt a tug at her shoulder. Wally was adjusting his position, trying to look around.

"Um, Di?" he said quietly. "Where…where are we supposed to go?"

Diana blinked, realized that none of them had a destination of any kind in mind after they took to the air— _her_ included. So long as that was the case, they might as well have stayed in the hanger and closed their eyes, maybe hummed a jaunty tune to drown out the screams until it was their time to die.

( _Hera help us…at least to pick a place to hide…_ )

They'd need a way to see around them, and whatever place they ended up in would need to be sealed tight. Diana could think of only one place like that and…it was a start. That was all it was, a start, but that was better than floundering out in the open.

"We should return to the monitor womb," Diana said. The rest of the League snapped out of their stupor and turned their heads. She cleared her throat and continued:

"It is where all of our equipment is—security equipment, I mean. And it can be sealed off from the inside. We will be at this thing's mercy if we do not get our bearings, find a way to _protect_ ourselves."

"With what?" Shayera said. "I'm all for piling into a sealed room, but let's be realistic: we'll need more than a couple of alarms and a really heavy chair if we're gonna fight this thing off."

"Fighting Bruce off," Clark said. "Mary and Joseph…" Diana could tell that this was meant to be said quietly, but Clark had lost control of his volume as the words formed on his tongue. He looked up at the League, looked embarrassed to have said anything at all, not that he had a choice.

"That _thing_ isn't Bruce," John said. "He's—or, _it's_ —fuck, I don't know, but it's _not_ Bruce anymore. It's… _it's_ …"

"Not even human," Wally finished. It was a mumble, but he'd mumbled loud enough for the others to hear. John's eyes went back down to the floor, either to scan it for hostiles or prevent him from making any further eye contact.

"Doesn't matter— _any_ of that," Shayera said from beside him. "First and foremost, we're in a hostile environment with a hostile enemy. Either that or—"

Clark spun around on his back and faced Shayera directly. "How can you say none of that matters?"

"—it's out of control. And _what_?" Shayera returned Clark's glare. "What was that?"

"How can you…that's our friend! Or was our friend! You can't just—you can't say it doesn't matter that we were just attacked by our friend!"

"It really honestly _doesn't_ , Clark," Shayera said back. She then looked at the rest of the League: Wally was staring at Diana's shoulder, but Clark looked ready to start shouting.

( _Please for the sake of all that is good do NOT do that, Clark_ )

And John looked like he didn't know what to do—whether he should agree with Shayera and stare down whatever Clark had to say or tell off Shayera for being too cruel. Diana swallowed painfully and tried not to glare herself: just like John, she had no idea what to do; and she didn't know how to stop the fighting, either—to get people to just listen to each other. None what-so-ever.

"Look," Shayera continued. "Yes, it sounds harsh. _Unbelievably_ harsh. I get it, and I wish I didn't have to say it. But if we're thinking about anything other than _survival_ —and I mean literally _anything_ —then we're going to right where Bruce is. A whole lot of fucking good mourning will do us _then_ , you understand?"

"How can you possibly say that," Clark repeated, not as a question.

"Because I'm _thinking_? Because I have a sense of self-preservation somewhere? Go ahead Clark, pick one. Hell, add your _own_ if you want, I won't—"

"We lose perspective, we lose our lives!" Clark said, his voice rising. "So we can't—we can't just pretend that we're fighting some unnamed, _unknown_ , _unFEELING_ —"

"What the hell do you think I'm trying to _tell_ you _, Boy Scout_!"

" _Enough_!" Diana said. "Enough. That is more than enough." Normally, Diana would have had something to say at this point, something to keep the peace. She realized too late that all she was truly aiming for was some blessed silence: not because they were at the risk of giving away their position, but because their argument was making her feel sick.

( _Surely not because I'm having the same one in my head—surely not_ …)

John, luckily enough, used his own impatience to grant Diana an extra few seconds to think. It did nothing to defuse the situation in its own right, but Diana would take what she could get. You couldn't be picky when something made out of your dear friend's body was hunting you like a heat-seeking missile.

"All right," John said, "before you go picking sides or anything—"

"That is _not_ my plan," Diana replied, and then the gears finally clicked into place. "All I want, _at the very least_ , is for us to fight in a _secure room_. Can we do that? Can we at the very least pull _that_ off, if nothing else?" She let the words hang in the air and hoped ( _prayed_ ) that they landed with significant force.

"Just listen to her," Wally said from behind her shoulder. "I'm not dying in a fucking hallway."

Diana squeezed his arm, but he didn't return the gesture. Through the slits in his mask she saw his eyes locked ahead, unblinking and pot-marked with red veins. He reminded her of J'onn, of how the blood was trickling out of his eyes when she—"

( _Hades_ )

"J'onn," she said. "We have forgotten about J'onn." _How_ could she have forgotten? When she was listing off the names off everyone, how they'd be affected by what happened to Bruce—J'onn was as much a friend to him as they were, and yet she _forgot_ …

"OK," Shayera said, "that's a bit different. And…" She trailed off, looked like she was about to beat her fist into her thigh. Then she sighed and continued: "But we can't just go charging off and—"

"I am aware of that," Diana said harshly. She saw Shayera flinch (she wouldn't like having to be the bad guy here, wouldn't like feeling as though she had no choice _but_ to be the bad-guy) and Diana felt a pang of regret at her own tone. Whether or not it was justified—

( _how could it not be justified we just forgot our_ friend _, we forgot our_ comatose friend _because our minds are fragmented and off and Hades what happened to Bruce was so thoroughly fundamentally WRONG_ )

—Diana didn't like it; she felt like she was making the situation all the worse with every snapped sentence, with every biting remark.

She continued all the same:

"But we cannot leave him if he is still—

( _safe conscious not a THING_ )

—secure."

"Then let's just get there," Clark said. With an explosion of air he pulled ahead, leaving just enough distance between him and the rest of the League to tell them from then on, there'd be only silence—fly peacefully but shutting completely up. And there was silence; the League _had_ completely shut up.

Until Diana started to laugh, that is.

She stifled it quickly, but the others—minus Clark—still stared at her. John and Shayera's attention went back to flying and not crashing into the walls or ceiling, but Wally kept looking, _had_ to keep looking, since he was clinging to her back. Diana forced her eyes to stay straight and not return his look as she cupped her hand to her mouth and took deep, deep breaths.

The thought that had caused her to laugh was this:

( _I said_ Hera _help us, not_ Ares…)

 **VII**

Diana spent the rest of the trip within in her own mind, looking out at a meat puppet in American-flag underwear as it sped off towards the monitor womb.

She had regained control of herself. Or, at least she hoped ( _prayed_ , again) that she had. It seemed as though that whatever had caused her to laugh at an errant thought ended up being purged somewhere during the trip—purged and squashed and destroyed, thank you very much. She didn't have to tell herself that was a good thing: couldn't be much of a peacekeeper if your cackling made others run for cover, after all.

( _Rule number one in the playbook_ )

( _No laugh—that is good. So long as I ignore the fact that I am talking to myself, trying to test whether I will make myself laugh again. Hera, this cannot be a sign of a healthy mind…_ )

The lack of laughter (and the lack of having to worry about laughter, at least for now) meant that Diana's mind was now cycling through half a million different ideas. No, half a million different _problems_ —an _idea_ , she decided, was productive; what was going on inside her head, on the other hand, was anything _but_.

Despite herself and her best intentions, more than a few of those thoughts were focused on her own actions, her own mental state and behaviour. She shouldn't have laughed, shouldn't have snapped, shouldn't be constantly looking inwards when everything around her was collapsing into a pit. It was normally a good thing to be aware—to see what every thought was leading to—but this wasn't normal, this overwhelming pull to retreat into her own mind and just close off her eyes and ears to what was going on outside. No, _none_ of this even remotely approached _anything_ that could be considered normal; and for reasons that her hyper-active sense of self-criticism couldn't fathom, there was no explanation to why the abnormality of it all was causing her so much trouble that made any sense.

Maybe she should be _extra_ aware of what was happening inside her head, or maybe operating purely on instinct was the only way to keep a row of teeth from jutting out of her arm (or whatever the hell these creatures could do). Vicious self-critique and a willingness to be open with herself—an openness that society had thoroughly shunned—was, to a large extent, the only reason she managed to get through life without tearing her scalp right off her head—

( _And_ other _people's scalps, as well…_ )

—as well as being the reason why she had the Golden Perfect, the thing that needed an open heart to open up the truth within others. And there were other people to consider, people she _needed_ to consider. A warrior instinct alone wasn't going to take that into account, not in the slightest, because that was the fundamental contradiction within her, wasn't it? The warrior has to think about themselves but the diplomat has to think about others: the hero and the scholar and just the everyday regular on the street have to take other people into account and what's happening to them and what _might_ happen to them but right now, in the Watchtower, there wasn't really anyone to save except herself, herself and a group of costumed heroes who were thinking the same thing as her and facing the same dilemma as her and _gods_ the more she thought about J'onn and Bruce and whatever might happen to anyone else—

( _Stop. Stop this right now_ )

No, this really, _aggressively_ wasn't normal. She could handle multiple levels of thought without being paralyzed, had done so many times before with anything from Abrams tanks to the actual God of Nightmares trying to kill her. Why was _now_ so different? Trauma alone shouldn't have— _couldn't have_ —

It was like someone was screaming out a broadcast in her head, tearing her thought process to unrecoverable shreds. She had felt something like that earlier—the funny feeling that had seemingly joined with the rest of her anxiety and dread—only now it was amplified, an air-raid siren to the previous problems mere alarm clock drone. Instinct might be best, might be all she had _left_. Instinct and training, the countless millennia spent fighting and defending and planning.

( _But I cannot ignore the others. I WILL not ignore the others. You cannot make yourself unfeeling in order to stop a monster_ )

( _Athena, grant me a fucking answer, if you please_ )

She very nearly laughed at that, but the chuckles faded into nothingness before they reached her lips. It wasn't self-control that killed them—no, it was the feeling of standing in a bog with high-heeled shoes. Unease, a lack of direction—screaming up at the sky and seeing not even a single star to guide your way. There wasn't going to be an answer, Diana knew that; and because Diana knew that, she noticed for the first time just how drained she was.

( _I am deathly serious, Athena…_ )

When she finally left the confines of her mind the external world seemed cold and in constant flux, like it was an omnipresent and howling winter wind. She wanted to go back there, back into her mind—and this would not be the last time she felt that urge. But she resisted, and focused her attention on the hallways the group snaked through.

She had to. If they had been attacked when she was daydreaming, what would have happened then?

 **VIII**

They had finally reached the monitor womb, everyone that was left. Now they could plan, Diana said to herself. They could plan and figure out what the threat was, what would need to be done to beat it. Clark told Diana that she'd been awfully quiet on the trip, which didn't exactly register as concern on his part. It _should_ have perhaps, but it really truly didn't: _everyone_ was quiet on the trip, which meant she had been quiet and _clearly_ struggling with something. Showing vulnerability was nothing to be ashamed of—the Amazons had taught her that long before they started digging spears and arrows into her hide every time she trained—but none-the-less it made Diana feel even more uncomfortable. That pull inwards had mutated further; now she felt like she needed to hide.

That was then: _now_ she needed to focus, to _plan_. Wally had disentangled himself from her shoulders and she was free to move around: congregate where she needed to congregate, run over options with whomever she thought would offer a second opinion, that sort of thing. But she caught herself stepping lightly as she moved towards one of the main computer terminals, looking at every crack like she expected a gnarled hand or blood-slicked tentacle to burst through. She thought about grabbing more than just her lasso, maybe raiding one of the more tightly sealed weapons cabinets somewhere else on the Watchtower, but that would come later: _now_ she needed to be less paranoid, to actually contribute without her mind drifting to whatever was hiding under her bed or closet. A good defense was not, in fact, a good offense when your opponent could turn their skin into a whip.

John had already reached the terminal. Diana decided to pull up next to him and, possibly, get a talk on strategy started. She noticed his eyes were just as locked on the floor as hers, even though his hands were busy clacking away on the monitor's keyboard. She stopped then, remembered what she had promised herself earlier, and moved a few inches closer.

"John," she said. "I believe we are safe in here."

"Yeah," he said, still splitting his attention between the floor and the monitor. "Sure. But don't bother checking up on me, all right? I'm fine, really." He finally looked up at her, and tried to offer her a sincere smile that look more like he was passing a kidney stone. "Really."

Diana did not push; she just nodded and let him finish what he was doing. A message flashed on the nearest screen, bright green letters that declared the entered security codes to be valid, thank you for playing. A hiss of air pulsed overhead and the metallic noise of heavy locks slamming into their natural position echoed out overhead. The lights dimmed briefly, then were replaced by the blue glow of the room's largest screen—the "Big Board" as the League called it. That name and the joke that created it—

( _'Wait,' Clark had said, 'please, for the love of God, tell me Lobo didn't see the Big Board!'_ )

—felt like ancient history, of course, but Diana couldn't even find it in herself to feel bitter anymore. Too many other thoughts, too much sensory overload. The little bit of numbness regarding a far happier time from before was the one thing that day that was the least bit expected—everything else had been a surprise from Hell.

"We're locked in," John said, turning towards the rest of the League. "Not that—sorry Diana, not trying to call you out—but not that we should feel the least bit safe or anything."

"More like ants that just walked under a magnifying glass," Shayera said. "We've just sealed our only exits."

" _Entrances_ ," Clark said. "We wanted a place where we could plan, right? A place that's safe? Well, this is the best we've got—only safer place is outside, and none of us have access to space suits right now."

"Says a lot about the shit we just fell into," Wally said. He took one look at the Big Board—Diana saw his head jerk away after only a second. She needed to change the subject; she needed to get the group goal oriented before things unravelled even more. Besides, Clark was right—this was, at that moment, the best they could get.

( _Though Wally is very much right too…_ )

( _Shut up, Diana…_ )

"What are our concerns now?" she said. "Beyond mere survival, I mean. We need to locate J'onn, that is one. And we need to deal with this creature in an effective manner; that is two."

"Containment," Shayera said, speaking up quickly. "That's three. Whatever this thing is, _none_ of it can leave the Watchtower. _At all_. I've seen movies and read books: no matter how garbage the writer is, they at least understand that the heroes're better off flying into the sun than letting something that can do— _that_ —" she made a gesture with her arm, one that made it look like something was clawing out of her stomach, "get anywhere near a major city." She looked at Clark, grew a sympathetic look on her face. "Or small-town—anything in between too."

Clark gave her a brief look—one that was nicer than it had been—then returned his gaze to the Big Board.

"That will necessitate us deciphering this thing's origins," Diana said. "Which is something we ought to do anyways, so this is an important step. Whatever this mutation was triggered by—compound, spell, psychic command, the list could go on—we will need to devise counter measures around it."

"Might find out if the process is reversible too," Clark said, trying to sound hopeful. Diana nodded in his direction, but had to force herself to smile.

"We will certainly pray that is the case," she said.

"Containment…" said John. "That should be easy, but—think about it: teleporters are out, so that's not an option, but we've still got shuttles—two dedicated to travel and a handful that are combat ready. We lock them up and scrub them clean, we take away our only rides out of here. Then we're trapped and, I hate to say it, even Condiment King would have a shot at taking us out."

"We'll have to do the same with our comms," Shayera said, again quite quickly. "We'll need a message that, um…that says don't come up here. Don't come looking for us if we go quiet. Then we'll probably need to cut them in case one of us gets desperate."

The room fell silent, the weight of Shayera's words hanging overhead like a sword. Diana shook her head—this was better than detachment, but now she had to wonder if, somewhere along the way, the League had been zapped of their strength, had been subjected to enough psychological attacks that bearing the brunt of their reality was now too much for one person to handle. Did that make openness more important? Or was anything less than unrestrained fight-or-flight a fool's game now? Diana didn't know—she was, unfortunately, retreating back inside her head.

"Wally," Diana said eventually, "will you please pull up the feed from the hanger? The med-bay as well, if you can—I would like to see J'onn."

Wally nodded but said nothing. He shuffled— _noticeably_ shuffled—his way towards the monitors. Two squares of the massive screen blinked and then roughly pixilated until an image began to emerge from its assorted shades of blue. The medbay was small and had comparatively little area to scan; the scanners created an intelligible read-out of the room within seconds. The hanger comprised a large portion of the station's bottom levels, however. A full scan—one that was in depth—would take far more time.

The med-bay scan showed a still J'onn curled up on his medical slab, in the same pained position that Diana had left him in what felt like days earlier. She breathed a sigh of relief over not having lost two of her friends, especially (she selfishly thought) one that had been ignored by her and by the others when the chaos first broke out. She would have enjoyed letting the sigh stay on her lips—enjoyed feeling a tiny moment of release from the worry and the fear—but it disintegrated sharply when her mind considered—

( _are they connected?_ )

—an uncomfortable possibility. Something in her mind gripped the memories of J'onn and his screams and his blood like they had been welded together, and for a second Diana expected her ancient funny feeling to detach itself from the larger mass forming in her thought, free now to run rampant in her body until she was paralyzed in body and in soul.

"Lock the med-bay please," she said.

"We can't reach him then," Clark said, not quite accusing her of something but certainly sounding confused.

"That may be for the best," Diana said. "I know this is difficult to countenance, but—"

"Christ," Shayera said softly, "You think J'onn did this? Or…or _might_ have done this?" She shook her head and sighed. "God, no end to the nightmares today, huh?"

John sighed as well. "Does line up, if you think about it."

"I am not committing to _any_ explanation just yet," Diana said. "But if we throw caution to the wind—" She paused and flinched, remembering how those were Bruce's exact words. "We must be careful," she started again. "At this point, anything is possible." She fell silent.

Then Wally spoke up, so softly that Diana thought she was the only one who heard.

"Completely isolated," he said. Diana moved towards him, but only stood at his side, did not force him to look at her or even acknowledge that she was there. It was a thought she knew everyone else had as well—one that _she_ was having—and her response was just as much for the group as it was for poor, poor Wally.

"We are heroes," Diana said. "This is, I'm afraid, what we have to do."

Wally's head dropped, and if his eyes were open he would have been staring at the floor. "If you told me I'd die like this…" then, even quieter than before: "Shut up Wally, shut the ever-loving fuck up."

Before Diana could say anything, the second flickering corner of the screen blinked once and then solidified into a complete picture. A timer showed that internal processing was almost finished.

"Scan's pretty much done," Shayera said, walking up to the screen. "Should have something soon."

Diana's mind interjected before she could say 'thank you':

( _Hera, I forgot the motion sensors—why did I not ask about the motion sensors?_ )

"Turn on the motion sensors too please," she told Shayera. "I should have mentioned that earlier.

Shayera nodded, but said: "It'll take a while."

"That is better than our own backyard being a mystery to us."

"Can't argue with that."

Shayera's fingers clacked away at the keyboard, and soon the loading procedure for the Watchtower's motion sensors phased into existence near the centre of the Big Board. Just as it appeared, however, Diana heard Shayera curse; for a second she assumed, in complete panic, that the sensors had booted up far faster than expected, and they were showing the League that a legion of unnamed creatures was right below them or above them or with them, right now, invisible to sight or touch thanks to some internal trickery. One look at the Big Board, however, told Diana otherwise.

"Those are our shuttles," John said, his voice caught between surprise and defeat. The thing that had made Shayera swear—the thing that Diana now saw and John gaped at—was an obscured image of smoldering wreckage, so obscured because of the smoke crawling towards the ceiling and away from the pockets of fire. The shuttle Clark had come in and every single combat ready craft that League had at their disposal was little more than shattered metal and sparking wire, all of it covered in a yellow glow that burnt patches of black into the hanger floor. In the midst of the vehicular carnage sat one transport shuttle, the second one that the League had built; it was completely undamaged, not even scuffed or marked by shrapnel from the explosions that had raged around it. A fuel hose lay abandoned like a decapitated snake, but there was no sign that the engine was idling—that they had merely caught it in the process of running its component parts until sabotage destroyed it from within. It was odd, but Diana's mind was focused on everything else that was going wrong in that hanger.

John pushed his way to Shayera's side and started slamming his fingers into the keyboard.

"We've got to lock down the hanger," he said. "Lock it down and lock the whole damn Watchtower with it."

"Sending a message to Earth and then cutting communications," Shayera said. "We're going dark."

"I can't…I can't believe Bruce—I mean this thing," Clark stopped mid-sentence and started pulling at his chin. "I'm getting a copy of the security footage. I need to see what this thing is capable of."

"You need someone to do play-by-play?" Shayera said back. "Because I'm pretty sure we need to find a hiding hole right now, not wait for the computer to run eight more programs."

Clark's eyes snapped towards Shayera. "Watch it Hawkgirl. Right now—at _this point_ —you push me and I'm liable to push right back." He thumbed a few buttons and pulled out a USB from the monitor, holding it tightly between his fingers.

" 'Hawkgirl?'" Shayera said. " _Hawkgirl_? Look, I'm _sorry_ Clark, but I already said I'm focusing on keeping us alive—"

"You're not the only one!" Clark snapped back.

"You wanna watch the interruptions there, farm boy? My entire point was going to be that acting like a bitch is just gonna come with the territory—because we need _focus_ —but I don't need a stupid as shit argument like _this—"_

Diana would have said something. She would have stepped in and intervened and tried to get her friends back to a place where they recognized one another as being just that: _friends_. It worked; it so often worked—and then the best bits of their best criticisms would get blended together into a plan that no force on earth could defeat. But all she could do at this point was interrupt. The lone shuttle stood out at her like a message on the moon: it wasn't random, not in the _least,_ and yet there were explosions and open fuel and one flammable substance after the other around it, things that a less careful hand wouldn't have been able to account for if it was mindlessly destroying—"

( _But it wasn't mindlessly destroying, was it?_ )

"This is deliberate," she said, loud enough to catch everyone's attention. "This thing is displaying a grasp of tactics."

"You're saying this thing can _think_?" John said.

"It tricked us into thinking it was Bruce," Wally mumbled.

"Whether it is sentient or not is purely academic right now," Diana said, though she wondered ( _worried_ ) about that herself. "What is clear is that it can plan—use a delicate hand—and I believe—"

Diana glanced at the monitor. The screen that showed the hanger was gone. Superimposed on a bed of static—a bed that had expanded out from a third corner of the screen to consume every inch—were red and blocky letters, spelling out one blunt message:

 **FOOTAGE DELETED**

( _Tactics…_ )

She did not even get a chance to call out to Clark, to even make eye contact. He crushed the USB in his fingers just as the motion sensors roared to life. An orchestra of proximity warnings announced that something was outside the main entrance to the monitor womb, something the scans could not detect as having the usually biometric IFF. It was a very specific system—Bruce had insisted on designing it that way—and if even the slightest thing was off, say because your face had ripped itself apart, the scans would know and would ensure every security team on station knew what you were doing.

The thing outside picked that moment to unleash a cry that combined the noises of a slaughterhouse and a wind-tunnel. There was shambling outside, then a loud bang on the walls. It was trying to get in—and making sure the League knew it.

Diana finally stared at Clark as she backed away from the noise, though she would later wish she hadn't, just for sanity's sake. His eyes were staring at nothing, his look was completely blank, but there was something crawling under his skin—something that pushed pinpricks of blood out through his pores.

( _Gods…_ )

Wally crashed into Shayera, clumsily sending both her and her mace sprawling away from Clark's outstretched hand. They slid across the floor and landed next to another terminal, just as Clark jerkily retracted his hand and tried to mumble something. To Diana, it sounded like he was trying to say, "Help me."

Then he started to shake, and the blood began to pool out quicker. Diana wanted to help—gods knew she did—but it was too late. Again, it was too late to save her friend.

Her lasso was in her hands, again without her even being aware of the action. A quick strike to Clark's knee with its unbreakable material dropped his leg before he could jolt forward. Clark didn't make a sound as he went down; his upper body stayed preternaturally straight.

A solid blast of green energy knocked Clark back into the monitors, and soon John and Diana were at the side of their fallen friends. Diana pulled up Waly, John grabbed Shayera by her arms; without so much as a word they bolted towards one of the secondary entrances, the one that was furthest from the main entrance but still very much looked down like all the others. Shayera's mace collided with the door before she had even arrived at it.

Another swing deepened a growing crack in the metal, but the door was still standing. It was _supposed to_ , after all—a security door sealed away everything outside at the cost of trapping everything inside. Diana raised her fist and prepared to drive it through the next three layers of reinforced material, but the sound of glass disintegrating on the monitor womb floor pulled her attention behind her, back towards the mess of sparking wires that had once been the Big Board. Clark was standing up now, completely silent, his silhouette the only thing visible through the smoke and newly created darkness, his head cocked at a sickly angle. Then his abdomen began to dissolve, dripping onto the floor like rancid meat.

Diana heard—not watched, but _heard_ —his ribcage poke out through his flesh, and continued to hear horrid sounds as they snapped open to let his intestines fall freely to the floor. They hissed—she heard them _hiss_ —and his posture shifted to a point where she knew he was about to charge, where he would grab them and tear them to pieces or do something worse, so much worse, whatever it was that this mutation of Clark could do.

( _Not Clark, Clark's gone too, he's another thing and Clark is gone just like Bruce and—_ )

"Behind us!" she shouted, launching her fist through the door like it was made of cloth. Her knuckles snapped but did not bleed; the door groaned but eventually collapsed in on itself. Light poured into the darkened monitor womb just as Shayera pulled her mace back and looked over his shoulder.

"Jesus!" she said. "John! Blast him!"

John pulled up his arm, charged his ring, and planted his feet as green light painted their corner in colour. "I'm sorry Clark, I'm sorry man!" he cried out, followed by an angry, defeated curse. His arm rocketed back as a beam of green energy arced over the floor of the monitor womb, heading towards the Clark-Thing as fast as it had gone in the hanger. But the Clark-Thing moved aside so quickly it seemed as though he had just phased in and out of existence. It did not charge though—on legs that acted more like broken crutches than bones covered in muscle, the thing began to back up, snapped its tentacles defensively, growled something that might have passed for a lion if it was dying of a parasite.

"It knows when to retreat," John said.

"As do we," Diana said.

"You heard the lady." Shayera pushed aside the remains of the door and reached for the rest of the League. "Get fucking moving!"

"Come on," Diana said, reaching out for Wally. He limply offered her his arms as they leaped through the door, passing by Shayera as she pointed her mace forward for cover. John backed up as well, signaled for Shayera to start moving, then began crafting something with his ring—a large cylinder, covered with wiring and a flashing console. Diana stopped and looked at both John and the thing he was holding.

"EMP," he said to her. "Fry the monitor womb, blind these fuckers, maybe limit its ability to use the Watchtower against us. I'm spitballing but we need some kind of cover."

"Please hurry," she said. "They may think you are vulnerable."

"Like hell I am," he said, and with the flick of his wrist he sent the EMP tumbling into the room. He pulled back and took to the air; Diana locked her step with Wally as they followed after him and Shayera. Her ears were trained on the monitor womb though, making sure the device detonated.

It did. A supernova erupted from the demolished door and electricity crested up the walls and over the floor in blue pulsing waves. The overhead lamps behind her and a few feet in front of her rained glass on her head, though it was not dark: the light from the EMP had painted the entire hallway in white, almost like it had burnt the colour into the metal. It gave the monitor womb an unholy glow, like a deity was tearing through reality just a few feet behind them. But it worked—the snapping sound of fried machinery attested to that much.

Diana increased her speed as one last sound clawed its way into her ears. She would decide, right then and there, that it was one of the most horrific sounds she had ever heard.

It sounded like demons, joyfully dragging a village into hell.

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 ** **Random tangent here: why's it called a "monitor womb?" Serious question - I really don't get the name.****

 ** **It's what it says online; it's what Grant Morrison called it during his JLA run. Is it a Morrison thing? Or do other organizations call central areas "wombs"?****

 ** **I mean, I have no problem naming it that, I'm just wondering, you know, why.****

 ** **Whatever. Thanks again for reading everybody. Hope you're enjoying it so far!****


	4. Chapter 4

**This chapter is a complete mess, so my apologies. I wish I could blame it on the fact that Diana's mind is slowly coming apart at the seams, but it's mostly because _my_ mind is coming apart at the seams. **

**So while I'd normally wait and add another 4000 or so words to this thing (you know, some more violence or what-not), I kinda just wanted to get this out there so I didn't have to worry about it anymore.**

 **Hope it's otherwise readable. Enjoyable? I don't know. But if you can get through it without being totally confused or thinking that someone else started writing this halfway through, then I that's good enough for now.**

 **Not like I'm gettin' paid for this, so...**

* * *

 **Who Goes There?**

 **IX**

She was lost in the depths of her mind again, lost and letting her legs carry her through the corridors on their own. It wasn't a volley of thoughts forcing her spotlight inwards this time: it was a memory, one of her and Bruce and Clark as they received a minor commendation from a world leader whose name totally escaped her. That wasn't really important to Diana—what _was_ important, naturally enough, revolved entirely around the fact that the three of them were together and happy, having saved innocents yet again.

The leader of the country—whoever they had been—had left them standing on the podium as the crowd cheered. All three of them stared at their admirers somewhat sheepishly (it was, after all, their job); but even Bruce, who normally snarled at sunlight, was beaming just a little bit that day. They all felt lifted up whenever an innocent was saved, and if she remembered that day correctly, it had been a particularly flawless episode in the ongoing adventures of the nascent Justice League.

Diana saw the crowd thin in her memory, leaving the three heroes alone with each other for the first time in several days.

"That was fun," Bruce said flatly. "Remind me to buy this place so I can come here more often."

"For their sake," Diana said, "I hope it is usually not this exciting." She glanced at both Clark and Bruce. "Perhaps they can think of another reason to invite us back."

"I dunno," Clark said. "Hard to beat the kind of invitation they sent our way. Might seem too ho-hum for us."

"I suppose I could drop a few hints," Diana said, pretending to stroke her chin. "Maybe say that we enjoy the occasional fruit basket or incense and rum."

"That'd be an improvement for me," Bruce said. "I'm pretty sure someone tried to summon me the other day by sacrificing a goat."

Diana saw Clark turn with his brow raised as she supressed a chuckle. "Does Diana need to break out her lasso?"

"Well," Bruce said, turning to Diana. "Do you?"

She shook her head. "It is Gotham, Bruce—I believe you."

Her memory skipped then, as memories tend to do. They were walking off the stage when the images changed, invaded upon by something else from some other time. It was the present, of course—Diana could read that immediately. There had been no other time—especially not that long ago—where she watched Clark start to bleed out of his pores.

"You know what I think?" he said, oblivious to what was happening. "I think it's pretty damn good whenever someone other than America asks for our help."

"Language, Boy Scout," Bruce said. Diana, in her memory, smiled at the both of them.

"I believe I see where you are going with this," she said. "Though Batman is right—there are children present."

She was looking at Bruce when she said that. His face—

( _still attached_ )

—didn't move or so much as crinkle.

"Harsh," he said. "Harsher than normal. I'd make a joke about that, but it'd demean the both of us."

"Wow," Clark said. "I forgot we only pretend to like each other." Diana remembered Clark saying that, but she couldn't see him in her memory anymore. There was only the _concept_ of Clark, a barrier where she knew he should be. And Bruce was changing now too—his arms, for instance, seemed far longer than normal. Diana could see the changes in her memory—the _corruption_ —as it happened in real time; but much like a particularly bad dream, she was completely helpless to change it.

"Continue with what you were saying," Diana said in her memory, smiling brightly, unaware that she was talking to what might as well have been a hole in reality.

"I'm just pointing out that it means we're not imposing—or, at least I _think_ we're not imposing. People just want our help and don't assume we're acting because some larger group told us to. I'm thinking—I'm _hoping_ —they just see us as people who'll give them a hand, no questions asked."

"And so we will not have to fight with governments or arouse a protest where ever we go," Diana said. She couldn't remember what she had been doing then and there—that part of the memory had been swallowed up in nothingness. "That would be incredible. I hope that is the case just as much as you, Superman."

"No political bickering, huh?" Bruce said from somewhere. The memory was collapsing in on itself—collapsing and Diana was still in it, still within the walls as they fell. "Then what are we keeping you around for?"

"Because Superman cannot catch you every time your chute fails?" Diana had said that—she _had_. But now it sounded distant and felt distant and the chuckling she had received from both Bruce and Clark was vanishing now, vanishing like _they_ were vanishing, replaced by a howling in her mind and a composite image of Clark and Bruce, Clark as one of those creatures and Bruce as one of those creatures and they were standing and dripping blood and swinging flesh under a crackling monitor as smoke and darkness poured in and they were _howling, howling some cry that couldn't have come from anyone with working human vocal cords and behind that howling was a faint voice, a tiny voice from a distant past that said:_

"I hope you two never change."

And then she was back. She had torn through the encroaching darkness and was back—in the Watchtower's halls, sprinting behind the others. Her right knuckles hurt, and looking down she saw that they were bruised. She must have swung them into a wall or something—that was probably how she managed to dig her way out of her memories.

 _Gods_ , why did she keep retreating like that? Retreating and just… _blanking out_! Dissociating! Whatever word you wanted to describe a full-on mental retreat, that was it—that was what her mind was doing to her. Retreats were necessary, yes, but not like this—not _remotely_ like this. It was why she had always said that strength was found in emotions: confront them, welcome them, utilize them, and mentally you would come out better and more enlightened that before. Running _away_ from them though? The thing she was doing, the thing she was afraid _everyone_ was on the verge of doing? That was cowardice, that was weakness, that was her being—

( _vulnerable_ )

Vulnerable. Diana slowed her pace and took a moment to stop her teeth from grinding together. That was _not_ something to feel ashamed of—not now, not ever. It was a universal constant: everyone was vulnerable in some way, varying with time and place, with interactions and reactions. That was one of the first things the Amazons had taught her, as well as being one of the first things she tried to export to Man's World along with like-minded thinkers. Vulnerability existed and to be ashamed of it was to overestimate yourself, cut yourself off from those that needed help, and create a world where anyone knocked to the ground would be mauled by a vicious horde. Such an outlook was unbecoming of a hero, but in this scenario—in a battle with an opponent as vicious as these things—to not recognize her vulnerability was to leave her defenses fatally open. It was like not switching your shield tactics when a brawler pulled out a bow: you would be killed before even taking a step forward.

Wires were getting crossed, that's what it felt like. Up was down and black was white—

( _dogs and cats living together!_ )

—and _that_ , that was the _worst_ of it! Not only was she being drawn into the world inside her head, but that world was becoming increasingly nonsensical. How long would it be before thinking clearly became like wading through a bog? How until—

She looked over at Wally. He had slowed down—so had everyone else, but Wally's strides seemed particularly lethargic. Actually, no, that wasn't right: they seemed _pained_ almost, not like he was physically hurting but as though he had a migraine.

( _I can sympathize, Wally_ …)

Yes, she _could_ sympathize. Which is why she should _say something,_ right? Say something _right then and there_ because clearly—very clearly—he was struggling, and she was the only one who noticed. All that previous crap about how "maybe this will slow us down" or "maybe we're just fighting here, we'll deal later," she'd made her decision. They could fight and they could talk; they could survive and they could heal. This was what leaders did, and that was why she _herself_ didn't take the plunge and just admit how she was hurting, because leaders weren't allowed that luxury and besides Wally was hurting more and yes, vulnerability was a universal constant but not everyone could simply _admit_ that they were struggling and—

( _Stop. Stop Diana. You're rationalizing. There's no reason for this nonsense train of_ thought)

( _And right now? You are_ not _a leader—you, and everyone else, are trying to survive with a broken back and a fractured mind._ Recognize _that before you let yourself or others get hurt_ more)

Diana shook her head. She was right—right about the rationalization, right about how she could clearly say something herself, if she chose to do so. But she was also right to push ahead and realize that they couldn't just go on pretending they were all right. Looking at Wally, it really _was_ clear that he seemed to be struggling the most. What John had said earlier, about Wally's age, it was true; and Wally was always well aware of his relative lack of experience. He handled it well—did not become consumed with proving himself—but…she had told John earlier that a psych evaluation might be necessary so many hours ago, and that had been when the only causality of this madness was J'onn. Now they had Clark and Bruce to deal with, and Diana suspected that _nobody_ , including her, would be able to purge those images from their minds. To see your friends turn to mutilated and shambling corpses _while they were still alive_ , changed beyond recognition by _something_ , a something that _everyone else_ might be infected with too—it would be too much for most to bear, for anyone to be _expected_ to bear. Wally was young and Wally still felt he had a lot to prove; if _she_ didn't want people to see her vulnerable, then how open to the idea would Wally be?

( _Then you must ease into it…_ )

"Wally," Diana said. "Wally, here, look at me." He looked at her and tried to swallow. It became stuck in his throat, pushing his Adam's apple out an obscene distance. Then he tried to speak to her—in fact he seemed _desperate_ to do so—but either his closed airways or his brain's inability to form words caught whatever he wanted to say in a phlegm-slicked net. Diana moved forward, kept the corner of her vision of Shayera and John, and lowered her posture until she and Wally were eye to eye. Shayera and John's faces oscillated between blank stares and a blend of every emotion Diana could name, each one fighting against themselves in a container threatening to explode.

"We are all struggling," she continued, "so you need not fight yourself. Take your time to say whatever it is you need to say—we will be here, and we will listen when the time comes." She gave him a smile, but noticed very quickly that it lacked almost all mirth. It was a show-smile, and she was convinced that Wally would notice within a second.

( _You're using him because you're afraid you're using him because you're afraid YOU'RE USING HIM BECAUSE)_

There was a slap, and Diana realized that she had just hit herself. It had cut off yet another round of babbling in her mind, but clearly everyone else had noticed. They were silent—and Diana could _feel_ their eyes on her.

"You gonna be OK, kid?" John said eventually. Diana saw that he wasn't really looking at Wally when he said it—not completely, at the very least. His eyes were mostly over her and Wally's shoulders, focused on a patch of unmoving shadow some ten, maybe fifteen feet away. But they also had a tendency to drift towards her.

"Yeah," Wally said, looking nowhere in particular. "Yeah, GL. Sure. I'll be good."

( _Only "be", not "am"…_ )

"We are each other's support," Diana said, kicking out whatever voice might work its way into her consciousness. Not now—she'd deal with that later.

Placing a hand on Wally's shoulder, she said, "Do not be afraid to use it."

Diana watched him blink, and then there was that look of trying to put thoughts to language again, of needing time to think and speak and then absorb whatever he had said. A metallic ripping noise dissipated this look the moment it reached their ears, launching them into combat-ready stances. Diana scanned around the group, but when she let her eyes fall momentarily on Wally's face, she was dismayed (but not surprised) to see it had completely vanished without a trace.

"Was that station noise or something else?" John asked.

"I know what I'd put money on," Shayera said. She looked quickly at Wally. "So, yeah, don't be afraid to talk. But be a hell of a lot afraid of the thing going bump in the night."

"Middle of the day," John said.

"Don't goddamn start with me," Shayera said. "It's not funny even when all my friends still have their faces in one piece." She scanned the ceiling like she was a computer program, then shook her head violently. Diana saw her turn to Wally and offer him as sympathetic a glance as she could muster, given the circumstances. What resulted was a look of cold worry.

( _distance breeds safety distance breeds_ —)

Diana very nearly slapped herself again.

"Like I was trying to tell Cl—I mean…" Shayera sighed—a long, heavy sigh. "I'm sorry Wally, I really am. But you've gotta multi-task: if you're saying something, you've either gotta do it now or do it when we're running the hell away."

"Running where?" John said. His ring was pointing in every direction, like he was an automated turret. "I'm not opposed to moving, but it better be someplace safer than where we came from."

"And where the hell would that be?" Shayera said. John nearly scoffed.

"Exactly my goddamn point," he said.

Diana's mind briefly went blank, pushing away the sensory world until it was just her and the accumulated experience of ten thousand battles. These creatures had tactics. It was a horrific thought to have, but she couldn't deny the sight of an intelligent foe any more than an astronomer could ignore the Sun. It had left one shuttle and destroyed all the rest; it had clearly lured Clark—

( _unless he was already one of those things…_ )

—to the Watchtower and infected him without her or the others knowing. And _no_ , she would not— _could not_ —consider even for a second the notion that Clark was already one of those things. She had her limits; that was far beyond them. It simply made no sense, not if these things were capable of planning like she suspected, because why call him up then? Why waste energy when an infected Superman could clearly do untold damage on his own down on Earth and besides if she thought that way, oh gods if she thought that way, then what was the point, what was the point because the Earth was already dead and doomed and you see Dr. Greenberg I am clearly living _proof_ , living nervous proof that you are on the right track the right train of thought because I'm clinging, clinging to Earth and to her people and because if I think they are all dead then what point is there in doing _ANY_ —

( _STOP! For the love of the gods STOP THIS!_ )

It could plan, just stay at that thought. These things could plan and deliberately left a shuttle intact. Just _one_ shuttle: all other means of transportation, of _escape_ were…

( _Gone, destroyed, and it nearly had us trapped in the monitor womb, because it knew we would go there and seal ourselves in, cut all communications, and dissuade anyone from looking for us_ )

( _So it could deal with us covertly—us being its biggest threat on Earth if we managed to rally—then leave in their one shuttle with no one being any the wiser_ )

( _Hera_ , _it's going to try to leave_!)

"The hanger," she said, loudly and in the midst of a pocket of silence. The sudden onset of sound startled the rest, and for a second, Diana was staring at the engravings of a green and glowing ring. It didn't lower until she started speaking again.

"The one shuttle it left," she continued. "It – _they_ —may try to leave, either now or very soon. That is why all they left the one intact: this creature or creatures or _whatever_ they are were going to kill us while we were isolated, or _assimilate_ us when we were isolated—which is…is what I think happened to Clark—and then return to Earth with both the element of surprise and seven of the most powerful heroes on the planet contained, if not converted outright. The comms are down, our transporters do not work—there is only one way to travel between here and Earth, and these things wanted to be sure that only one type of being took advantage of this fact."

She paused: what she needed to say next left a lump in her throat as well. "And since they did not immediately flee, I can only assume that they want to do to us what they have already done to Clark and Bruce."

( _Hera help me if I my ribcage turns into fangs…_ )

Whatever humour might have been in that thought died, both from the dire nature of their situation and the looks she was receiving from the rest of the League. A voice in her head told her to check for teeth growing on her skin, just in case—

( _They would have shot me by now_ )

—but instead she just stared back, waiting for the first response.

Yet again, it was John who broke the silence.

"You want me— _us_ —to go back into—" He stammered, then grimaced. "I mean that's not—no, _no_ that _is_ what I mean, I'm sorry but I _do_ : you want us to go all the way back to _where we were first attacked_ because those things might try and _leave_? That's it, right?"

"Yes," Diana said. Another rip sounded overhead, and Diana could imagine the Clark-Thing—

( _Great Hera now I have to_ name _these things…_ )

—tearing its way through the locked hanger door. It had his strength, after all—didn't it?

( _Can these things do that? I think they can, but why? And…and does that mean what happened to Clark and Bruce is completely and utterly irreversibly—_ )

"We may be running out of time," Diana said, cutting her own thoughts off (and nearly clinching her fist over it in the process). "If they reach Earth—if they truly do want to leave—then we have utterly failed to protect the planet and its people."

"And then what?" Shayera asked. "What do we do after we've blown up our ride home?"

"Then we tend to J'onn, see if he is still locked away or has…has a change of condition."

Shayera blinked. "So you really think he might be one of them?"

( _Yes no I don't know some would have drowned him in_ gasoline…)

"It is something we need to find out either way," Diana said.

There was a pause, an empty one where it seemed as though even the station was listening in. Then Shayera sighed, sighed again, and slammed the handle of her mace into her palm. It bruised at the moment of contact. Diana thought that she looked like she was being torn in half, then felt her own stomach churn at the image said thought conjured up.

"Fuck!" Shayera said. "Fuck, it makes sense. Perfect sense. Maybe not the J'onn part and maybe _yes_ the J'onn part but… _fuck_ , why didn't we just assume this? Why didn't we march off to the hanger the second we lost those things like we're goddamn _expected_ to?"

"Because we're scared shitless," John said flatly. It sounded like a struggle to keep his voice even.

"We don't have _time_ to be scared shitless! Do you want what happened to Clark to happen to Kyle? Or your neighbor? Or—or someone who can get a hundred people locked in a room together just long enough to convert the lot of them? 'Cause that could happen and we should _know_ that could happen. Shouldn't we?"

Another metallic groan. Diana was now convinced that if it was them, these _things_. It was almost like they were mocking the non-converted still trapped in the Watchtower, like they just _knew_.

Then she heard Wally speak; he used a softer voice, but his question was blunt.

"Are we sure?"

"It is what I would do if I shared their goal. Myself and any other creature capable of organized yet violent thought." Diana was mostly looking at Wally when she said this: the glances from Shayera and John, the looks that they then passed on to one another after staring at Diana for long enough…she saw them, but her mind refused to register them at first.

"All right," said John. "OK. Then let's move. Stay close, check your six— _double check_ you six—and walk lightly. Anyone drops, you pick them the hell up; anyone gets pulled into the ceiling, you blast until you've hit outer space, we clear?"

"Diana," Shayera said. "You wanna grab a sword or something?"

( _I am hardly stable enough to carry a sword right now_ )

"Later," she said, keeping everything else internal. "Getting to the hanger will take priority."

"Right." Shayera spun around quickly, cast another look at John, and then began moving ahead. John followed, returning the look as she passed. This time Diana's mind _did_ register what she saw, but she stamped the implications down for at least the immediate future. She and Wally were left, and before Wally started to move, Diana stepped into his view. She waved Shayera and John off as she looked Wally in the eyes.

"Wally," she said, "please do not forget what I said. You, me, the others—there is much to talk about, to discuss and _cope_. At some point, it is a conversation we can delay no longer."

He was quiet for what felt like a millennium, long enough for her to fear that John and Shayera had put too much distances between themselves and the ones left behind. But then Wally spoke, and true to Shayera's words, he did so as he burst into a quick stride. Diana followed closely and listened.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'll talk. Sure. I'll talk about signing my own death certificate, emphasis on the "died doing his duty," part. Then maybe we can have a conversation with Bruce, huh? About how the lot of us are supposed to just automatically take some absurd nightmare bullet for the rest of the species like we're some…some sort of anti-virus software with a cute name. Yeah, he'd rip the eyes right the fuck out of my sockets and make a noise worse than my mother being tortured to death but, hey, at least it's better than talking to J'onn—the Big Man still…still looks a bit like how he was before—"

He trailed off before stopping abruptly, still walking but now completely silent. As the pause grew longer and longer Diana could see that every second or so step was off, like he was falling onto his ankles. Eventually he stepped completely wrong and bit out a curse, only to increase his speed and grimace until his lips began to bleed, leaving Diana alone in the rear and wondering whether she should just let him go, let him cool off before she tried again. She _needed_ to try again, before the unprocessed reality of it all swarmed him, swarmed _her_ , drowned them both and pulled the entire rest of the group down into madness long before these things could lay claim to their bodies.

( _Please, Wally—come into my office, sit down on my couch. I promise that there will be no boring questions about your childhood; I merely want to know which way you would prefer to die, that is all. Can you not see I am trying to help_?)

Whatever escaped from Diana's throat was either another giggle or a quick and harsh cry. She could no longer tell the difference, and yet again, she had to restrain her own hands from slapping her face.

And all the while she watched John and Shayera, who couldn't keep their eyes off her for more than five seconds at a time.

 _ **To be continued...**_

* * *

 **Sweet Christ, I'm glad that's over with.**

 **Note to self: don't start rearranging entire chunks of text without some kind of master plan. It's just gonna end up like a nightmare.**


End file.
